Fairy Tail's Water King
by Flame-Fist-Ace
Summary: Naruto's dead and now face to face with Kami herself and is reborn into a new world now that is own is lost. What will happen to him now? Become a mage, that's what. Naruto/Erza/OlderWendy/Juvia
1. Chapter 1

**Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto **

**Fairy Tail © Hiro Mashima**

_**Chapter One**_

It was dark, so very dark. It felt like gravity didn't even exist, a constant weightlessness, yet it was suppressing, he couldn't move. He had felt this several times fighting Sasuke and his new Rinnegan powers for the last time in a very nostalgic battle in the Valley on the End. Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze slowly opened his eyes, black, just endless black.

'_So, this is what the afterlife looks like, huh?" _He thought glumly.

Yes, he, Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze, was dead.

His death wasn't exactly what you'd expect from him. It wasn't the going through the pearly gate in blaze of hellfire, backwards while riding a dragon. Nope, Naruto was killed by a knife to the heart, while lying in a puddle covered in his own blood.

You see, after his last fight with Sasuke, which had destroyed the Valley of the End and most of the surrounding area, Naruto was extremely wounded, to the point where the Kyuubi's chakra could barely heal him. Madara Uchiha used this to his advantage. He taunted the blond, saying that "After everything that he had done, it was all for naught." before finally fatally stabbing Naruto in the heart.

"Not quite." A clearly feminine voice rang out though the void.

Naruto tried to shift around to see where the voice was coming from but with a combination of exhaustion and ability to move restricted this. A sudden flash of brilliant white light and Naruto now found himself sitting on a comfortable sofa in the middle of a pure white room plus he was as naked as the day he was born but for some reason he couldn't bring himself to care.

"Hello Naruto-chan."

Naruto looked behind him and saw a stunningly beautiful woman standing there; she had silky white-blond hair that went long past her hips, bright emerald green eyes and a figure that most women would kill for. She wore a simple yet elegant white robe which fit nicely around her body . The way she smiled at him, it was almost like a mother looking on to her child, pure happiness and pride but there was an underlying feeling of unimaginable power. Of course Naruto couldn't help but gawk open mouthed at the beauty like a slapped fish.

"W-who are you? Where am I?" he finally asked, pulling his senses together and sniffing the blood that was now dripping from his nose at this point.

The woman giggled lightly at his questions, "You, dear Naruto-chan, are in what I like to call, the Waiting Room and I am Kami."

For the second time in two minutes Naruto expressed his version of a fish out of water, causing Kami to burst out in a giggling fit. She got that a lot.

"Wait, what's The Waiting Room?" Naruto asked her.

"Well, some people call it Limbo, others Purgatory and at times it's known as Asphodel. It is really the border between Heaven and Hell, Life and Death. It is an amusing concept, if I do say so myself. " Kami explained almost proudly.

He nodded in understanding before looking glumly to the floor, "So which way am I going? Up or down?" he said making Kami burst out in outright laughter.

The blond sage stared confused at the deity in front of him, "What's so funny?"

"Sorry, sorry." Kami said, trying to hold her giggles, "It's funny that you think that I would not give you another chance after all the good you've done in your life."

"What do you mean good, because of me, my home was destroyed and all of my friends are dead!" Naruto shouted, tears shining in his eyes. He was suddenly met by a sudden slap to the face from Kami.

"Shut up! Don't be so selfish! All that happened wasn't because of you, it happened because of that poor excuse of a human life named Madara!" Kami yelled back, a powerful fire shining in her eyes.

Naruto held his smarting cheek glaring back at her, "Of course it was because of me, if I were stronger then I could have protected them!"

Kami snarled at the comment, her calm, kind and motherly presence all but gone and replaced with one of pure anger and power, "Listen here and listen good, your world was doomed from the beginning, there was nothing you or anyone else could have done."

The teen stared at the ground for the longest time as realisation of what Kami had just said dawned on him. Tears rolled freely down his face.

Kami's fierce expression softened and here kind aura returned, "I'll tell you this, Madara's plan did not the way he wanted at all." she giggled at the thought, "You see after he extracted the Kyuubi and his chakra from you then revived the Juubi, well, he failed to seal the beast inside himself or take control of it, instead the beast went on a rampage, killing him and all his followers in the process, but the down side is that the Juubi still wiped out just about everything. But hey, that pice of scum is boiling in oil as we speak."

Naruto cheered up slightly at the thought of that crazy old bastard's plan turning against him but quickly returned to sadness after hearing that his friends died in the process and he completely ignored the part about Madara sitting in a vat of boiling oil.

Kami sighed, rather dramatically, at seeing her attempt to cheer him up, she was sure the thought of Madara boiling in oil would have gotten at least something out of him, so she just decided to move on.

"I'll just cut to the chase now Naruto-chan, the real reason I brought you here is so that I can make you an offer." Kami stated.

Naruto sniffed thickly and looked at the goddess, "What kind of offer?"

She smiled lightly at him, "A new life in a new world."

"But what about my parents, I want to see them again." Naruto said a little panicked.

Kami smiled sadly at the boy, "You're parents have taken their gift, and chosen rebirth, but not before they saw you grow up to who you are now and I can honestly say that I've never seen prouder people in my life. Plus your dad was a awed at who strong you had become and a little miffed that you had mastered his _Hiraishin no justu(Flying Thunder God Technique) _ so quickly."

Naruto laughed sadly at the thought, he may never see his parents again, but smile small smile spread across his face at the thought of Minato is dad whining about how much stronger his son was than him and his mum, Kushina, hitting him on the head, calling him a girly man and telling him to get over it.

"If I take this deal then what will happen to me?" Naruto asked.

"You will forget all about your previous world and your techniques but I'll let you remember your parents to an extent.

The blond sighed. Doing it would mean that he would forget all his family and mostly everything he had learned but it would be a new chance at life.

"Alright, I'll do it." he said finally. At least he would forget to regret it later. Heh.

Kami smiled fondly at him, "Good."

And everything went black...

.oOo.

*Eastern forest, Kingdom of Fiore, X770*

A young boy no older than six years old lay unconscious in the middle of a clearing in the eastern forests of Fiore. A low rumbling noise woke the boy from his sleep. Naruto groggily opened one eye and sat up slowly rubbing the back of his head,

"Urgh, what happened last night?" he grumbled.

The blond kid looked up and found himself face to face with a dragon...

"AHHHHH!" Naruto yelled in shock more than anything else.

"You dear disturb my sleep?" the dragon grumbled irritably.

Naruto glared at the dragon, "Hey! If anything you disturbed _me_!"

The six year old got a good look at the dragon, and it was _huge_! Bigger than most buildings he'd seen in his short life. It had ocean blue scales and glowing yellow eyes. The teeth in its mouth were serrated, shark-like and bigger than bananas. Battle scared covered its body

Naruto suddenly couldn't help but stare in awe at the giant being. He was quickly shaken out of trance by a deep chuckle.

"You've got guts kid, what's your name?" the dragon asked, slightly amused by this _ningen _(Human).

Naruto pouted and replied, "I was always told that it was polite to give your name before asking someone else theirs."

Again the old dragon chuckled in amusement at the brat in front of him, "True, I am Oceanus, the mightiest and oldest of all water dragons. I have bested Igneel the fire dragon many times in battle."

Once more Naruto found himself looking on in awe of the dragon in front of him, he didn't know who this Igneel was but he sounded really strong and this guy beat him.

"I-I'm Naruto, Naruto Gurgite (Whirlpool in latin)." he stuttered, suddenly feeling very nervous.

Oceanus laughed, "I like you _gaki (brat), _tell me, would you like to be strong?" his ancient voice suddenly becoming very enticing and welcoming, like a hot spring on a cold day.

Naruto nodded vigorously, he remembered how strong his parents where and how he wanted to make then proud. Then the thought of the fire that had taken their lives. Quickly shaking the depressing thoughts from his head, the six year old looked back to the dragon.

"Well then, why do you want to be strong." the dragon asked.

Naruto grinned, "To keep my family and friends safe from harm."

Oceanus accepted the child's answer with what looked to be a smile, "Then come with me child, I will make you strong." he said inviting the six year old to climb onto his back.

With a cheer Naruto leaped onto the great dragon's back. With a bellowing roar, Oceanus spread his powerful wings and flew off into the sky. Naruto yelling in shock as he held on a best he could to the dragon's thick blue scales.

.oOo.

*Kami's dimention.*

Yami, a black haired, black eyed, version of her sister Kami turned to said sister after watching the scene unfold,

"You think it was wise, influencing his decision and lying to him like that?" she asked in an ever stoic tone.

Kami nodded, "Yes, if I let him pass on this world would not get the way I planned for it to and he will never know that his parents are still n the afterlife, just as they will never know that their son is dead." she replied, confident in her plan.

Yami sighed; this was typical of her sister, always planning everything and anything, not truly giving anyone a choice. Though in a way that was why Yami admired Kami so much; she was the master manipulator. But on more than one occasion it had come back to bit her on the butt. Last time she tried something like this, a man tried to erase the gap between the spirit realm and the monster realm, Yami worked hard to keep those two separate in general, to gain the powers of a 'god' and take on their little brother, Shinigami. But Kami never seemed to learn.

"You know, this _will _come back to haunt you." Yami sighed.

"No, it won't, because I have it planned out perfectly this time." Kami said happily.

Yami shook her head and folded her arms under her chest, "You said that last time."

.oOo.

*10 miles west of Hargeon town, Fiore, X770*

By the time Oceanus had landed by the river he planned to train the young _ningen_ (human) he had fallen asleep on his back. The old dragon had no idea how he could sleep through that flight and not fall of his back; the head wind had to have been at least 50 miles per hour.

The dragon set the boy gently on the ground and chuckled at the sight of the now heavily snoring boy.

'_Oh young ningen(human) you will never sleep so soundly for the rest of your life.' _an almost evil gleam appearing Oceanus' eyes at the thought of the tortur- er, training he would put the boy through, _'Good luck kid, you'll need it.' _

**And scene.**

**So what did you guys think? It's my first Naruto/Fairy Tail story... hell it's my first Naruto or Fairy Tail story in general. I'm looking for a beta-reader for this story, if anyone is interested. If you are please send me a PM. Review and tell me what ya think of this chapter. The next one will be out soon. Until then, Ja ne! **


	2. Chapter 2

**Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto**

**Fairy Tail © Hiro Mashima**

_**Chapter Two**_

*Ten miles west of Hargeon Town, Fiore, X774*

Naruto Gurgite, aged ten, lay sleeping soundly in his hammock, a small grin spread across his face. He was having a lovely dream about a giant bowl of ramen and becoming the strongest mage in all of Fiore. That was until...

"WAKE UP BRAT!" a deep voice bellowed not too far away from the young boy.

Within a second, Naruto's eyes snapped opened, as he shot out off his hammock and got ready to block the incoming ball of water. He opened his mouth wide and _inhaled_ the ball of water, not drank, inhaled. Gulping down the water, Naruto turned to the source of the water with a harsh glare.

"What the hell? Ya crazy old lizard!" He shouted at the blue scaled dragon not fifty feet away, "Why do you always have to wake me up like that! You could've destroyed my hammock!" Naruto was proud of his hammock.

"I've told you many times before brat, expect the unexpected, to the point it is second nature." Oceanus explained with a visible smirk.

Naruto grumbled something about crazy lizards and their ideas of wake up calls. The blond sighed dramatically,

"Don't call me 'brat', It's Naruto!" he exclaimed at the old dragon.

"I'll call you by your name when start calling me _tou-san _(father)." Oceanus retorted.

"Well I guess we're at a stalemate... again." Naruto deadpanned, "I'm going off to practice the _Suiryu no Yokugeki _(Water dragon's wing strike)_._ See you in a bit old man." he said as he walked off towards the nearby ocean to practice.

It had been four years since Oceanus had adopted Naruto and started training. The boy was ecstatic at just the thought of having a dragon for a father, even though he refused to call him that but that was more endearing to the child. Oceanus allowed Naruto to go to Hargeon town on a regular basis to get things like food, clothes among other things. He even let the boy join the library so he could get books to teach the boy how to read and write. Just don't ask where they got the money from.

It was good for them; Naruto had made himself a hammock out of tree branch, leaves and string he bought in the market. He put it up between two trees in the clearing that he really called his home now and Oceanus rested not too far away so he could keep an eye on the boy.

Oceanus watched as his foster son walked off towards the water. Honestly he was amazed by the boy's progress in the last four years of his training. It was like the boy was some sort of fighter in a past life... But the way he absorbed the training was almost awe inspiring, even for the ancient dragon. He had the potential to be the greatest dragon slayer ever. One thing that amazed the dragon the most was that the boy managed to create his own techniques that where a combination of dragon slayer magic and normal water magic.

_*Flashback, Two years ago, X772*_

"_Old man, old man!" An eight year old Naruto yelled as he ran into the clearing where his foster father lay, "Look what I can do!"_

_Oceanus sighed in annoyance, "Don't call me that!"_

"_Look!" Naruto took on a look of pure concentration, water seeped out slowly from his body before he suddenly disappeared in a splash and reappeared right beside the ancient dragon. "See? Cool isn't it?" he said enthusiastically._

_The water dragon raised a non-existent eyebrow at the boy, "Impressive, what do you call it?" he asked._

_Naruto's brow furrowed in thought and he stuck out his tongue in concentration, "Hmm, how about 'Awesome water transport'?" he exclaimed happily._

_Oceanus sighed, his son may have been a prodigy in magical arts but he was still a hyper active eight year old boy. How could he forget, not a week ago the kid managed to paint his face red without him noticing until the next day. Naruto had a hell of a laugh and wouldn't let him live it down for months._

"_An... interesting but how about 'Mizu no suteppu'." he replied after a second of thought._

_The eight year old 'hmm-ed' for a second before nodding and grinning happily, "Sounds cool! Thanks old man!"_

"_It's tou-san, you brat."_

_*Flashback, one year ago, X773*_

"_What are you up to this time, brat?" Oceanus asked the boy. They had just finished his dragon slayer training for the day and yet he had found the boy doing even more training. Nine year old Naruto stood in the middle of a clearing, not too far from their own, surrounded and covered in water. He had his eyes tight shut and deep in focus and his arms crossed over his chest._

"_Concentrating." was his reply._

"_I can see that, but what are you concentrating on?" the dragon continued._

"_I'm trying to make a clone of myself out of water." Naruto said not making any more movements._

_Now Oceanus was intrigued, "Oh, and what brought this on?" he inquired, "Plus you do realise it will involve some illusionary magic?"_

_Naruto nodded simply, "Yep, I got the illusion bit down, with some help from a book from the library in Hargeon, but it's just the proportions I can't get right." he explained, "I don't really know why I thought of it, I just thought it would be handy in a fight."_

_Once again the water dragon was left amazed by the boys imagination and talent to come up with something like this then go through with it._

"_Right watch this." he said._

_The water around Naruto started shifting then rising up into the air before eventually taking shape. After the shape was made the illusion was put over it, creating a perfect clone of Naruto._

"_Well done, son, I'm very impressed." Oceanus said and overwhelming feeling of pride overcoming him._

"_Yatta! I did it!" Naruto yelled enthusiastically, "Thanks tou-san." he ran over and hugged his father, or at least what he could._

"_Ha ha, now if you would keep calling me that then I'd be even happier." Oceanus said, almost knowing he had just jinxed it._

"_Not on your life old man!" Naruto laughed merrily while Oceanus sighed. Yup, he jinxed it. _

_*Flashback end*_

Oceanus chuckled at the memories, Naruto definitely talented, to the point where he could draw water from the surrounding area and not just produce it from his body and nothing was ever boring with the kid around that was for sure. Heck, Oceanus even found himself wondering why he even preferred settling down to a peaceful life to begin with; it just seemed so dull now.

He was interrupted by a large glowing sphere of light approaching him,

'_Oh great... it's her.' _he thought glumly, _'May as well get this over and done with.'_

"What do you want Grandeeney?" Oceanus asked sounding exasperated.

"Oh don't be so mean Oceanus, aren't you glad to see me?" a teasing female voice emanated from the ball.

"Like a wart." Oceanus mumbled.

"Funny." Grandeeney said, "And here I thought I'd come see how you and your little _gaki (Brat) _were doing and maybe give you some news." she sighed dramatically.

"Well, what is it you need to tell me?" the water dragon asked, a little more politely.

"I just came to say that Igneel, Metallicana and I have adopted some little humans ourselves." the sky dragon explained, "And that Achnologia is angrier than usual."

Oceanus rolled his eyes, Grandeeney sounded like such a gossip sometimes, but she was powerful.

"That's maybe because we all have adopted a human and he despises humanity, Kami only knows how much he bitches about it every time I see him." Oceanus replied.

Grandeeney laughed, "True, but I also thought I'd give you a little info on each of our new dragon slayers in return you tell me about your little one."

The blue dragon shook his head, he should have seen this coming a mile off; Grandeeney had a habit of information gathering, whether she did it on purpose or not he did not know but it must have something to do with being a sky dragon.

"Fair enough, what do you have for me?" Oceanus asked.

The orb of light that was Grandeeney seemed to glow brighter at that moment, "Excellent!" she exclaimed gleefully, "My little girl, Wendy, she is about a year younger than yours and is so much fun to tease plus she is pretty good at healing magic." she said with a not so well hidden tone of pride.

"Igneel's brat is a boy named Natsu and is just as hot-headed as he is then there is Metallicana's brat, who I think is called Gajeel Redfox, all I know about him is that he is a year or two older then all our kids." Grandeeney explained.

Oceanus looked thoughtful for a moment, "Hmm, interesting." he said, "It makes me wonder what will happen if the four of them where to meet."

"True it does but now, tell me about your boy." she said, wanting to get as many details as possible as she couldn't get much from either Igneel or Metallicana.

"Well, his name is Naruto Gurgite, and he is very talented when it comes to magic and if you want for follow me." Oceanus said, motioning for her to follow him.

The sky dragon was all too happy to comply.

.oOo.

*With Naruto*

Naruto plopped onto the ground breathing rather heavily; he had nearly completed the _Suiryu no Yokugeki _(Water dragon's wing strike) and felt it was time for a little break.

He lay back against a nearby tree and looked to the clouds and pondered everything that Oceanus had taught him over the past for years, sure he was only ten but he had a good memory. He remembered when Oceanus had first started to teach him about the way of a water dragon slayer,

"_Water flows freely, going where ever it pleases and if face by an obstacle then it will find a way around it." _Oceanus had explained,_ "Water is calm and passive until you least expect it, so you must always remain on your toes."_

Naruto remembered that lesson clearly, the old lizard had doused him with water after saying that and then went into his whole 'Expect the Unexpected' rant. The blond got the feeling that he took a slight sadistic pleasure in that speech. But even he had to admit that Oceanus was wise, sadistic but wise. Not to mention strong, the first time Naruto doubted Oceanus' strength, the dragon flew them both out to Mt. Hakobe, faced down a group of at least thirty Vulcans and took them all out but literally blowing the top off the mountain.

Naruto was pulled from his stroll down memory lane by very heavy footsteps heading his direction. Looking up, Naruto saw his father step out of the forest behind him followed by a... ball of light?

"Ah, Brat, there you are." Oceanus said, "How is you training going?"

Naruto grinned, "Hey old man! It's nearly done, just a little more practise and I'm finished."

The ball of light behind the old blue dragon snickered at the comment, "Old man, eh? I like this kid already."

Naruto took a step back, freaked out by the ball, "Uhh, old man, what is that behind you?" he asked nervously.

Oceanus just shook his head; Grandeeney would never let him live it down, "This is Grandeeney, a sky dragon." he replied.

"You sure? She sure doesn't look like one." Naruto questioned, "More like a big ball of gas."

Oceanus barely hid his laughter, his son sure hit the nail on the head with that one, in fact, he could hear a vein popping in her head from here.

"No, boy, I am a sky dragon. " Grandeeney trying her best not to rip the kid apart for that comment, "This is just a form I take when I want to go from place to place quickly."

Naruto nodded in understanding, completely oblivious to the threatening aura radiating from Grandeene, "Oh, alright."

Grandeeney sighed, "The annoying thing is that I know that you and my daughter would get along swimmingly."

Oceanus snorted, "Welcome to the club."

"Anyway, I think I'll be off, don't want to keep Wendy waiting too long and all." she said, "TTFN, ta-ta for now." and the orb of light flew off into the distance and disappeared.

Naruto watched the ball of light vanish then turned to his foster father, "She was weird."

"You have no Idea kid." was the reply he got.

Naruto shrugged, "So when, I'm done with the _Suiryu no Yokugeki _(Water dragon's wing strike) what will you teach me?"

Oceanus 'Hmm-ed' and looked thoughtful for a second, "I think you're ready to learn the _Suirō no_ _uroko _(Water dragon's scales)."

The ten year old jumped in the air and cheered, "Yatta! I can't wait!"

**And scene**

**So what did you think? If you have any suggestions at all please tell me, I will take them **_**all **_**into consideration. Honestly, when I said I'd update soon, I never thought it'd be this soon, I shouldn't even be doing this because I have a major exam tomorrow but the up side is that it's the last one before summer! And yes, I did make Wendy older because if I decide to pair her up with Naruto, I at least want them to be similar ages. Anyways until next time...**

**Ja Ne**


	3. Chapter 3

**Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto**

**Fairy Tail © Hiro Mashima**

***IMPORTANT* Please read A/N at the end.**

_**Chapter Three**_

*Hargeon town, Fiore, X776*

The sun shone brightly in the sky over the port town of Hargeon. Twelve year old Naruto Gurgite walked down the street, arms folded behind his head and a small wad of cash in his pocket. No matter how hard he tried, Naruto could never figure out how Oceanus got the cash to pay for things. It was so frustrating! Every time Naruto asked, the old dragon would just chuckle and reply, "Here and there."

Naruto sighed and shook the thought from his head, it only annoyed him them more he thought about it besides he had to focus on what he was doing now; getting new clothes. He had grown out of all his out fits again and he hated having to clothes shop, it took up valuable time that he could be training or annoying the old lizard.

Few people smiled and waved at the young blond, they always saw the boy around town and even seen him training a few times. Naruto liked it, he didn't really have much human contact, and so he cherished any that he did have as much as possible. Of course over the past two years had been getting a lot more but still...

As he walked pasted the convenience store the owner's daughter, who was no older than five, ran out to greet him,

"Naruto-nii, Naruto-nii!" the little girl exclaimed, she jumped up and pounced on the Dragon Slayer, her two purple pig tails coming undone.

"Oh, heya Grace, how are you?" Naruto asked smiling happily and hugging the girl.

He meet Grace a year ago in the town's park where a four year old Grace had been cornered by three bullies who were at least twice her age and size and three times her weight. One of the bullies had her by her right pig tail and demanded that she give him all the money she had on her while the other two just sat back and snickered. It probably never occurred to them that she was only four and most likely didn't have any money on her.

_*Flashback, One year ago*_

"_Let me go, please!" A desperate Grace cried._

_The bully just sneered at her, "Not until you give me your money, whimp." he snapped back at her and tugged harder on her pig tail harder making her cry harder._

"_Ahhh, stop it!" Grace cried._

_Naruto was taking a stroll through the park, today was one of his rare days off training, there wasn't much to do on these days but the blond enjoyed them non-the-less. One thing he specifically enjoyed was the Hargeon town park, it was relaxing and he liked watch the other kids playing, it almost made him wish that he could be like them, almost._

_Naruto walked leisurely to the path that stretched around the edge of the park, looking at each of the trees that where plotted at random around the whole of the large plot of land and some of the bird that were singing merrily without a care in the world. The sun high in the sky but yet for such a lovely day the park was surprisingly empty, Naruto had only seen two other people, a young couple today._

_Suddenly a high pitched scream pierced the silence and calm of the park, startling Naruto,_

'_What was that?' He thought as he hurried to the source of the scream. What he saw made his blood boil; three eight year old boys surrounding a four year old girl who was easily half their size and one of them had the little girl's pig tail in their hand._

"_What do you think you're doing?" Naruto yelled over at them._

_The three boys turned round and looked at Naruto like they had been caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar._

"_Leaver her be!" He yelled again._

"_Run!" one of the bullies shouted and started sprinting in the opposite direct with the other two in tow, pushing the little girl onto the ground._

"_Little bastards." the blond dragon slayer mumbled, not wanting the little girl to hear him._

"_You okay?" he asked, kneeling down beside her and helping her up, "Did those boys hurt you?"_

_She nodded, rubbing tears from her eyes. Naruto growled quietly, he was soo gonna get those three next time he got a chance._

"_Is your mummy and daddy around?" he asked._

_Again the little girl nodded pointing in the direction behind him. Naruto smiled at her and picked her up started to walk in that direction._

"_So what's your name?"_

"_Grace." the little girl, Grace replied, sniffing thickly._

"_That's a lovely name; I'm Naruto by the way."_

_*Flashback end*_

Naruto looked at the bubbly little girl and smiled brightly at her, after that, he had taken her on as his little sister. Her parents were very grateful to him for helping their daughter with those bullies. He even brought her to meet Oceanus the day after her fifth birthday; the old dragon was amused by the newly turned five year old girl. Of course both he and Naruto entertained the girl with a small water magic show.

"So, where ya goin' Naruto-nii?" Grace asked her surrogate big brother, big brown eyes shining with curiosity. Naruto chucked at the adorable sight.

"I'm going to get some clothes, as you can see, I look stupid." Naruto said with a silly grin pulling on his clothes that where slightly ragged and way too small for him. Grace seemed to give a once before she started giggling,

"Yup, you do looks silly, silly!" she squealed when he picked her up and twirled around before setting her down again. "That was fun!" she exclaimed happily.

"So how 'bout you go ask your parents and help me pick out clothes?" Naruto said to the excitable child. Grace cheered happily and ran off to tell her parents. The twelve year old chuckled at the girls enthusiasm.

While Naruto waited for Grace to come back his mind drifted off to... well where ever minds drift off too but right now he was daydreaming about his training and being the strongest in Fiore. When suddenly he was knocked to the ground by a big heavy force.

"Oh sorry there, I didn't see you there." A deep voice spoke, "You okay there?"

"I'm fine, it's my fault. I was in your way." Naruto replied, looking up at the man. Picking himself off the ground, Naruto looked at the man with a slightly awed expression. The man before him was literally a giant among men, he was easily over six foot in height and his presence was extremely intimidating; he radiated massive amounts of destructive magical power and yet it was refined and controlled to a knife's edge. The man had slicked back orange hair, coal black eyes and a bit of stubble on his face. He wore a large black cloak that had metal plates on the shoulders. The man definitely was the definition of intimidating except for the kind smile he had on his face.

"Day dreaming?" the man asked with a slight quirk of an eyebrow.

"He he, yeah, I don't do it often though." Naruto chuckled nervously, scratching the back of his head.

The man just nodded knowingly, "Yeah, don't I know it. I can't count the amount of walls I've walked through because of my day dreaming habit."

Naruto stared open mouthed at the man, "T-through?" Naruto stuttered and again the man nodded.

They were both interrupted by a yell of "Naruto-nii!" They turned around to see Grace running towards them with a massive grin on her face.

"Hey there Grace, what did your parents say?" Naruto asked the five year old.

"They said yeah, I can go!" she exclaimed happily.

They older man looked down at the pair with a small fond smile, "Hello, little one, what's your name?" he asked her.

"I'm Grace!" the five year old cheered, "This is my _nii-san _(big brother), Naruto, he's so silly!"

Naruto laughed, embarrassed at the young girl's statement and rubbed the back of his neck. The orange haired man quirked an eyebrow at the boy before laughing and ruffled Grace's purple hair making the girl grumble.

"Nice to meet you Grace-chan, Naruto, my name is Gildarts." the now named Gildarts extended his hand for them to shake. Naruto took his hand with a smile then took Grace's hand,

"Well, we gotta get going, got some shopping to do." Naruto explained to the older man, "It was nice meeting you, Gildarts-san."

"It's been nice meeting you too, Naruto, Grace-chan, I hope to see you again." Gildarts replied with a friendly smile, though his eyes lingered on Naruto for a second more than necessary then he turned and walked off down the street. Naruto eyed the larger man's receding back; the man was very strange, he felt insanely powerful, magically and physically, it was scary, yet he was calm and cheerful, most people he had heard of were at least slight arrogant with their power, even his father was arrogant, he was just bored of boasting most of the time.

"Come on Grace, let's go shopping." Naruto said smiling at his surrogate younger sister.

"Yeah!" the purple haired girl exclaimed happily.

Naruto may have hated shopping, but he was sure that this one shopping trip he would enjoy.

.oOo.

*three hours later*

Naruto walked down the main street in Hargeon, several shopping bags in his hands and an exhausted expression on his face. Grace was skipping merrily in front of him, completely oblivious to the blonds' exhaustion. He took back what he thought earlier about this shopping trip, it was torture, pure unrivalled torture; Grace had proven herself to be a menace in the cloths shops! He admitted it was fun at first, him and her trying on all kinds of silly and funny clothes but the five year old never wanted to stop, almost literally forcing him to try on clothes. At the few times Naruto had decide to put his foot down she would just give him her patent puppy dog eyes and he would melt in seconds, must to the amusement of the store clerks and other shoppers and too Naruto's slight ire.

After _finally _getting Grace to calm down enough to actually pick out some clothes. Naruto picked out clothes that would lat long even with all the training he did. Of course Grace wanted him to have some 'pretty' clothes that make him look 'less silly' so she was constantly suggesting clothes with flowers on them or bright neon 'kill me now' pink. Naruto, being completely unwilling to hurt her feelings, made it seem like he was considering them before politely saying no.

Right now the blond dragon slayer was dressed in a purple button down shirt, it was a surprisingly good suggestion by Grace, a white jacket and a pair of cargo trousers with combat boots. He looked good in his oh so 'humble' opinion. Grace looked at him strangely when she caught him checking himself out in the mirror, she asked him what he was doing to which he awkwardly explained, something a nearby clerk found hilarious.

Naruto was now taking Grace back home and had all intents of getting back to his home as soon as possible and passing out on his hammock for the rest of the day. Of course he needed to make sure he didn't pass out before then.

After what felt like hours to Naruto, both he and Grace arrived back at her parents' store. Grace was reluctant to say goodbye to her surrogate older brother so soon, in her opinion, but she went inside the store. Naruto sighed, he did want to spend more time with her but he was tired and wanted to get something to eat.

"Thank you for looking after her Naruto-kun." Grace's mother said to the boy gratefully.

"Yeah, thanks a bunch _nii-san_ (big brother) tell Oceanus-jiji I said hi!" Grace called from the shop door.

"No problem," Naruto replied, "Will do, Grace. See ya later." he waved to them as he walked home.

.oOo.

Walking back down the main street of Hargeon, Naruto hauled his shopping home. The sun was getting low in the sky indicating the late afternoon. As the blond mage rounded the corner of the main street he saw a large group of people gathered outside the town's only bank. Naruto rushed over to see what had happened.

"What's going on?" Naruto asked anyone who heard him, anxious to find out what was going on.

"I'm not too sure, I just got here myse- Naruto? Fancy seeing you again so soon." A man replied. Naruto looked up at the man and saw the ever intimidating figure of Gildarts.

"Oh, hey Gildarts-san." Naruto said to him, "How 'bout we head up front to get a better look?" he asked.

"Sure." Gildarts replied.

With Gildarts' massive stature the pair cut through the crowd like a hot knife through butter. What they saw upset them both. A group of two mages where holding the bank workers hostages, their hands covered in blades made of fire and wind held to the hostages necks. Four more mages were hunting everywhere for every jewel they could find. A small group of Ruin knights stood just in front of them, doing anything, not wanting to risk any civilian casualties.

"Hey! Let them go!" Naruto yelled at the mages.

The one with the fire blade sniggered, "Oh yeah? What ya gonna do if I don't?" he sneered.

"Yeah, what will a little brat like you gonna do to us?" the one with the wind blade said.

Naruto took a deep breath as he remembered Oceanus' teachings; _Water does not get react angrily, it waits until you least expect it and then strikes swiftly and cleanly. _Naruto turned to Gildarts and handed held out his bags of clothes to him.

"Here hold these, I got some work to do." Naruto said to which Gildarts smirked and replied,

"Sure thing."

Naruto turned back to the two mages, the other four still rummaging around for more money and valuables, cracking his knuckles and glaring at them with a look of pure hatred,

"You messed with the wrong town, jackass." he said calmly, his previous exhaustion all but forgotten.

"Big talk, kid but can you back it u- urk!" The wind wielding mage was cut off by Naruto disappearing in a splash of water and reappearing not half a second later hitting him in the head with a jet of water freeing the first hostage. The jet of water managed to splash the fire wielding mage, extinguishing his fire and before he re-ignite it Naruto appearing behind him with a ball of condensed, spiralling water.

"_Mizu no atsuryoku-kyu! _(Water pressure sphere)" Naruto said as he slammed the ball into the back of the fire mage, rendering him unconscious and freeing the second hostage.

Gildarts looked on with the rest of the crowd, but unlike the crowd, he wasn't sporting a look of shock, amazement nor pride, in fact he looked intrigued; the twelve year old boy showed great strength and skill with his water magic. He could honestly say that he was impressed by the boy's display, for one so young to be so strong it was almost unheard of. If Gildarts had to guess the boy had to be at least on the level of a B-ranked guild mage.

By now the commotion had caught the attention of the mages inside the bank and two of the four were now looking outside to see what was going on- only to be knocked out by a water in cased fist to the face.

The water dragon slayer ran into the bank and quickly gave the place a once over; the whole main reception was ransacked, both workers and customers alike coward in fear of the mages that had come to rob the bank, the bank's main manger was standing near the back of the room stiff as a pole as a mage, who must've been the leader, held what looked like a cross between a trident and a halberd with a blue horse hair tassel around the base of the three prongs. But the most interesting thing was that water was pouring out of both ends of the weapon. The wielder looked heavily built and had a sadistic grin on his face. The last mage was right in front of the blond, just four meters away in a fighting position.

Naruto grinned, '_this shouldn't be too hard.' _He thought.

The mage held his hands out at Naruto and yelled, "_Aisu meiku: ookami_ (Ice make: wolf)!" a wolf made of ice shot at Naruto, its face frozen in a hateful snarl.

Naruto dodged it at the last second and rolled away from it easily. Dashing forward towards the Ice mage, he dodged an eagle sent at him, his movements reminiscent to water flowing down an obstacle filled path. Finally Naruto formed another _Mizu no atsuryoku-kyu _(Water pressure sphere) he thrust the ball into the man stomach sending the mage into a nearby wall.

"Let him go and I won't hurt too badly." Naruto said to the leader holding the strange weapon.

The mage scoffed, "You insolent brat, you cannot touch me, while I admit your skills are impressive you can't lay a finger on me as long as I have _Nejibana _(Twisted Flower)." he replied cockily.

Naruto smirked at the water pouring off the weapon, this guy had no idea who he was dealing with, that water based weapon would only help the twelve year old mage.

"Well, how 'bout you prove it? Come over here and fight me like a man." Naruto taunted to the mage. He took the bait.

"Alright you little punk, I'll play your game." the man snarled.

'_Hook, line and sinker.' _Naruto thought with a grin.

The armed mage shoved the bank manager away from him and started spinning _Nejibana _above his head before bringing it down in a wide arc creating a large wave,

"_Rippuru Hakei _(Ripple wave)!" he shouted.

Naruto heard a few gasps from outside and the massive wave came hurtling towards him. He just smirked as the wave hit him.

The leader burst out laughing, believing that he had won, "Not so tough now are ya kid?" his gloating was cut short when the wave dissipated and revealed Naruto inhaling the water with gusto.

Gildarts was now officially surprised, he had moved to watch Naruto fight from the doorway and was just about to intervene when the kid not only stopped the attack but actually consumed it, which what surprised him the most. He had heard of _Nejibana_ and from the stories about it, it was not to be messed with and now here was this kid barely thirteen years old had stopped it and eaten it. He knew only of one type of magic that could do that.

"Thanks for the meal." Naruto called to the shocked mage with a shit eating grin, "But I'm gonna have to finish this now." the blond turned to the banks manager with an apologetic look, "Sorry 'bout this but it needs to be done."

Gildarts raised his eyebrow at the comment, _'What is he gonna do now?' _

"Alright, let's kick up a storm!" Naruto yelled breathing in deeply, "_Suiryu no Hoko _(Water dragon's roar)!" he put his fists in front of his mouth like a tube, a blue magic seal appeared and a blast of high pressure water shot at the opposing mage, who tried to run away in fear of the blast only to get consumed and washed away.

When the water cleared up, everything within the blast's range was in way worse shape than it was when the fight began. The bank manager and everyone else bar Gildarts, who couldn't help but laugh, looked on in shock and awe at the boy.

"Well that clears that up." Naruto said happily.

He turned around to leave but tripped on a stray piece of furniture that had washed up beside after his attack.

Gildarts spotted _Nejibana_ not too far away from the boy and went to pick it up. He went back to Naruto handing him his shopping bags back along with the weapon. When Naruto looked from the weapon to him with a confused gaze, Gildarts chuckled,

"Take it you deserve it, besides I think it suits you perfectly." he said, "But honestly, when I met you, I could feel you where strong magically but not this strong and you're a dragon slayer no less."

Naruto grinned at him with a combination of pride and embarrassment, "Yeah, but I still got a way to go." he said.

Gildarts nodded, he helped Naruto up and helped him out of the bank. He nodded to the Ruin Knights signalling for them to round up the mage thieves.

"True you do, but I know a guild that you would fit right in at if you're interested." the giant of man said.

"What one?" Naruto asked.

Gildarts beamed with pride at the thought of his guild, his family, "Fairy Tail."

Naruto 'hmm-ed and looked thoughtful for a moment before replying, "Sure I'll join, but I'm still not done my training yet." he stated, "When I'm finished, I'll join."

Gildarts grinned even wide, the master would be happy about this, "Excellent."

**And scene**

**Hoped you guys liked it, I sure enjoyed writing it. My thanks to Raven the Wicked for the suggestion of giving Naruto Nejibana. Right, now I know a lot of you want different pairing so I've decide to put up a Poll on my page for who Naruto should be with and whatever pairing gets the most vote I will do but I will ALSO write some stories for the other pairings, I can't promise that they will be as good as this one but I'll do my best. So tell me what you think in the reviews and vote on the Poll. Anyways, until next time,**

**Ja Ne. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Naruto © Masashi Kishmoto**

**Fairy Tail © Hiro Mashima**

_**Chapter Four**_

***Naruto's clearing, Fiore, X776***

A month had passed since Naruto had stopped the robbers at the bank and Gildarts had invited him to Fairy Tail once his training was over, which of course had Naruto double up on his training both with his new weapon _Nejibana _and his Dragon Slayer magic. When Naruto told Oceanus about his meeting with Gildarts, beating the mages at the bank and obtaining _Nejibana,_ the old dragon just laughed and said the he was proud of the blond. Naruto was shocked to find out that his foster father knew the original owner of his new weapon,

As it turned out, _Nejibana_ was an old weapon that belonged to a man named Kaien, a man who was known as the best water attributed mage in all of Fiore and he was the first dragon slayer that Oceanus had ever trained. That was about two hundred years ago. Naruto asked the dragon if he was anything like Kaien. Oceanus scoffed and replied,

"You're so much like Kaien it freaks out even me; you're both extremely determined and excellent at magic, the only difference is that you are much strong than he was at your age, and he was known as one of the best."

Naruto couldn't help but beam in pride because his foster father and grandfather figure, as much as it annoyed Oceanus, thought so highly of him. It made him want to work even harder to prove that the old water dragon's faith in him was not misplaced.

Naruto had also spent plenty of time with Grace, playing with her in the park and showing her some of his smaller magic spell, ones that he learned for her. Of course she loved them, it was something that made Naruto happy seeing his little sister with a look of pure amazement and pleasure at the sight of the magic.

Right now Naruto was relaxing in his hammock, looking through the local paper with Oceanus resting not too far way, he had decided to go out and get some more experience in the field, after all 'training can only get you so far, but firsthand experience can get you the rest of the way. After all it doesn't matter if you can use the most powerful spells in a training field, if you can't use them when it matters most, it will most likely get either you or someone close to you killed' at least that's what Oceanus had said. Sometimes papers would have some mission requests in them, Naruto wasn't too sure why but he guessed that it got the word round more and made it more likely for someone to take it.

As he flicked through the paper he spotted a mission that peaked his interest. He sat up right to read it properly,

"Something catch your interest, kid?" Oceanus asked.

Naruto nodded and replied, "Yeah, listen to this; Mage or mages want to stop and capture a group of kidnappers, they have been stealing children from their homes in the dead of night for the past three weeks, we do not know where the children are taken but if we can question the kidnappers we may find out. They are believed to a be a group of six people who use magic lacrimas to immobilise anyone who sees them we will pay up to 1,000,000 jewels for their capture. From the Hargeon Town Council What do you think?"

Oceanus growled he hated people who would harm children; it was something that had rubbed off on Naruto as well, which would explain the kid's interest in the mission.

"I say you take it, there are few things I hate more than a someone who would harm children, it's a cowardly thing to do." the old dragon replied.

"I agree, I think I'll go check it out." Naruto said, he folded the paper, putting the page with the mission request in his pocket and stretched, "Wish me luck, old man."

The blue dragon merely grunted, "It's _tou-san_ and you don't need it."

.oOo.

***Hargeon Town Hall***

Naruto walked into the reception area of the town hall, it was a fairly fancy place, the floor was made of white marble, the walls where painted a light cream colour and there were a few marble pillars placed at regular intervals along the walls.

The blond mage walked up the receptionist, a pretty young woman no older than twenty, and pulled out the request page and set it on the woman's desk,

"Excuse me miss, I'm interested in the mission, I was wandering who I needed to talk to get make it official." Naruto said politely to the receptionist. She looked up at the blond and smiled,

"Sure, follow me please." she said, getting up and motioning for the twelve year old to follow. She lead him to a small corridor at the back of the reception area and then to the door at the end.

"Wait here, please." she said, and then went inside, a few words were exchanged with the man inside then the woman came back out, "The mayor will see you know."

Naruto was slightly surprised to hear that he was going to talk to the mayor but shrugged it off and walked inside.

The office was very well kept, the carpet was royal blue, the walls were painted the same light cream colour as the reception outside but it had the pictures of all the previous town mayors. There was a potted plant in each corner on the office and the mayors sat directly opposite the door and there were two chairs were in front of the desk.

"Ah, so you're the one who would like to take this mission." the mayor, a plump, balding man said looking from the sheet in front of him, "Oh my, you're the young lad who stopped those robbers at the bank a month back. Naruto isn't it?" he offered his hand for Naruto to shake

Naruto nodded with a small smile, taking the mayor's hand, "Yes sir, it is." he was happy that the mayor had heard of him.

"Excellent, excellent, then you should have little problem with this mission." the mayor said in a jolly tone, "Take a seat, my boy." he motioned to the two seats in front of him.

"Thank you, sir." the blond mage replied, taking a seat.

"Now, down to business, as you know there are kidnappers going around stealing children," Naruto nodded, "But one thing I didn't say was that they are also taking adults and elderly alike." the mayor explained.

Naruto's eyes widened slightly, "Okay sir, I understand, but what I would like to know is why you are telling me about this personally, couldn't you just have one of your council men inform me?" he asked.

The mayor's expression hardened, "What you say is true but the reason is that a close personal friend of mine has been kidnapped as well and I want to make sure you know exactly what I'd like you to do." he explained.

"Of course sir" the mage replied.

"Good, good, now I'd like you to know that while you do not have a certain time frame to complete this mission, I would like you to have it done as soon as possible." the mayor said in a matter of fact tone. "Do whatever you can to find them and capture them."

"I will do my best and I won't stop till I get them." Naruto said in a determined tone.

The mayor smiled thankfully at the boy, "Thank you lad, now on you go, you have a mission to complete."

With a nod, Naruto left the office, looking very determined, this not a mission in the paper anymore, it was a personal request from the town mayor himself. He had to get this done right.

.oOo.

***That night***

Naruto walked through the streets, his hands in his pockets, _Nejibana _on his back, humming a soft but loud tune, something that would catch someone's attention if he were to walk past them. His plan was to try and get them to come to him, while still keeping an eye out for anyone suspicious. It was just turning midnight and there was not a single soul around.

Naruto sighed; he'd been walking round humming for the last two hours in hope of at least sensing something but there was nothing. He was expecting to sense a spike of magic because the mission request said that they used magic lacrimas.

After walking round for another ten minutes, Naruto was thinking about calling it a night but suddenly there was a magical spike and it was coming from round the corner. But what made Naruto panic was that Grace's home was round there. Sprinting, Naruto headed towards the magical spike.

Making it round, just a few seconds later, Naruto breathed a slight sigh of relief; there were six men, all dressed in black, one of them a carrying what looked like a small child but Naruto could see brown hair so he knew it wasn't Grace and another carrying the receptionist from the town hall.

They hadn't spotted Naruto yet and where walking towards the port, laughing and complementing each other on a 'good nights work'. It made Naruto sick to the stomach, he would enjoy beating these guys asses.

Naruto used a _Mizu no Suteppu_ (Water step) to appear right beside the kidnapper holding the child and punched him in the face, making him drop the child. The other kidnappers were frozen in shock at the sight a boy appearing out of nowhere and attacking them. The blond picked up the child and quickly set him against a wall of a nearby building before disappearing in another splash of water then appearing again next to the man holding the receptionist.

"Take this!" Naruto shouted, as he planted another punch the man's face. The six kidnappers were only just now realizing what was happening.

Grabbing the unconscious receptionist, the blond mage set her down by the sleeping child. Naruto stood up straight and turned to the kidnappers with a look of pure contempt and hatred in his eyes,

"I am going to beat you in the most painful way I know." he said with an evil smirk.

The group of six men looked at him either amused or with a look of annoyance. The two Naruto had struck down were getting up rubbing their checks.

"Well would you looky boys, a kid has volunteered himself to help build the tower and help resurrect Lord Zeref." One of the kidnappers sneered at Naruto with a nasty laugh, "He's even brought us a gift." he eyed _Nejibana_.

"And he's a feisty one at that." another quipped smirking, "How long do you guys think that it will take for him to bre-uurk!" he was cut off my a pissed off Naruto punching him in the stomach with a water coated fist.

"Shit." The third kidnapper muttered and pulled out a slightly glowing purple stone from his pocket, "Sleep!" he said releasing the sleep magic from the lacrima.

Before it could take effect, Naruto was in front of him and knocked the magic stone out of his hand. The blond dragon slayer quickly twisted around and delivered a round-house kick to the man's temple, effectively knocking him out and giving him concussion.

The other five had now drawn their swords and were in fighting stances facing Naruto with contempt glares.

"Five adults against one twelve year old me?" Naruto taunted, "Now, that's just unfair... you should have brought more." he took _Nejibana_ from his back and hopped back a few feet.

Water flowed freely from either end of the trident-halberd hybrid as Naruto started to spin the weapon above his head and then slammed the trident end into the ground sending a massive stream of water towards the kidnappers,

"_Takeshio _(Tidal surge)!" Naruto yelled.

The massive surge of water hit the kidnappers, narrowly missing the still unconscious woman and child and sent them all thrashing into the walls of buildings. When the water dissipated the kidnappers where lying on the ground, coughing up lungful of water.

Naruto walked up to the one nearest him, picked him up by the collar of his shirt and snarled at him,

"Where do you take the people you kidnap?" he growled shaking the man violently. In response the man just glared back at him and spat on the blonds' face.

Naruto sighed; "I hoped it wouldn't come to this." he lied.

He reached down and grabbed the man's family jewels making him give out a high pitched squeal,

"Now tell me, where do you take the people you kidnap" Naruto asked more calmly, still holding the man's pride in his firmly clenched hand.

"T-to the t-tower of he-heaven." he replied quickly, his tone now at a soprano level.

"Good, now tell me how I get there." the blond mage continued, squeezing harder making the kidnapper squeal even louder than before.

"Go to the port and head south-east, it'll take you about thirty five minutes by boat." he replied making Naruto release him with an almost sinister smile. The blond head butted the man, knocking him unconscious. He found some rope in a narrow alleyway and bound each of the kidnappers after rendering them unconscious.

As he tied up the last one, he spotted the glowing purple sleep lacrima from earlier. The blond walked over and picked it up, '_This'll come in handy later._' he thought as he put the glowing stone into his back pocket.

Naruto left the kidnappers in the middle of the street for anyone and everyone to find. He walked down to the port and figured out which direction was south-east. After establishing which direction he needed to go, Naruto jumped into the ocean and used his water magic to create a small air bubble around him and then propel him in the direction he wanted to go.

After about fifteen minutes of travelling underwater, Naruto reached an island. He got out of the water shaking himself dry, he gazed upon what appeared to be the Tower of Heaven. It looked like a giant column of concrete that was covered in stone veins and stretched over a hundred feet into the sky. However it seemed to be far from finished; there were gaping holes and exposed support beams all around the top. Naruto scowled deeply at the sight of the thing as he realised why they were kidnapping people; slaves. They were being used as slaves to build this fucking tower, and whatever the damn thing would be used for.

'_That's it, I'm killing those bastard slave drivers and freeing everyone.'_ Naruto thought to himself, angrily.

Naruto sneaked around the tower looking for a way in. He wanted to blow a hole in this place and go in all guns a' blazin' but that was neither smart nor practical so he settled for going the quiet way in. When he reached the other side of the island Naruto saw two armed guards standing in front of a small gap in the front of the base of the tower. It had to be an entrance to the tower because as far as he could see there were no other entrances around the building. Being as quiet as possible, the blond mage made his way to the guards, he pulled the sleep lacrima out of his pocket and held it up,

"Sleep." Naruto muttered, within seconds the guards were rubbing their eyes and a minute later they were sleeping like babies, over grown, ugly and armour clad babies but babies none the less.

Once inside, Naruto found himself to be in a dark narrow tunnel, it was dark enough for him to have to use the lacrima as a small source of light. After about ten minutes of walking down the tunnel a light finally appeared. Deciding to run the rest of the distance it took Naruto about a minute to reach the end.

Naruto walked into what looked like a courtyard; it was dusty, the walls, ceiling and floor looked to be made of concrete. Pickaxes, shovels and rope lay scattered all along the floor. _'I gotta find where the slaves are kept.'_ Naruto thought to himself.

The sound of footsteps alerted Naruto to the presence of two people walking his direction. The blond jumped back against the wall, when seconds' later two more armed guards walked in chatting,

"Did you hear what happened to the blue haired kid?" the first guard said to the second, "I hear the boss went nuts at him and tortured the brat for hours."

The second guard snorted, "Little shit deserved it."

Naruto growled, seeing his opportunity, he dash out slamming a _mizu no aturyoku-kyu _(water pressure sphere) into his stomach, sending him crashing into a wall, Naruto grabbed the second guard by the throat, holding _Nejibana _to the side of his head.

"Where do you keep the slaves?" Naruto growled at the man who was suddenly sweating bullets.

"D-down that h-hallway and down a flight of stairs and you'll find them. Please don't kill me!" The guard pleaded.

Naruto pushed the guard away then punched him in the gut winding him and leaving him on the ground.

'_Alright, time to kick up a storm.'_

***Meanwhile, Underground slave cells***

The slaves sat in a palpable silence as they waited for the end results to their predicament to come. They all stiffened when the creaking noise from their cell door was heard. A shaking Erza was shoved in by one of the guards,

"And not a word out of ya!" the guard said nastily.

Once the door closed everyone started moving,

"Erza, Erza, are you alright?" one of the kids asked the shaking red head but was hit over the head by another,

"Of course she's not, look at her!" they said.

"B-but what about J-Jellal?" a third child slave asked nervously, "He was going to help..." the child was cut off by an elderly hand on his shoulder.

"Leave her be, she has had a horrible time in the punishment chamber. Poor thing." they looked to see the elderly man gazing on Erza with a sad look in his eyes.

"I bet Jellal was caught by the guards and tortured in her place." the elderly man shook his head, "Those bastards."

"I WANNA GO HOME!" One of the kids cried loudly.

Everyone looked panicked, "Quiet down, Shou, you'll get us all in trouble." another kid said. The old man just pulled the crying boy into a hug,

"There, there, Shou, it's alright, Grandpa's here." the old man said, "There's no need to cry." the little calmed down slightly and started sniffing thickly. Erza just slowly walked to the stone bench at the back of the cell.

"Quiet down in there, maggots!" one of the cultists yelling into the cell, kicking the door, "If they do that again, don't be afraid to give them a be..." he was cut off from giving instructions to the guard by a massive explosion not too far away.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? GAHH!"

"YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH TH- URK"

"STOP RIGHT YOU ARE! ARGH!"

Each of the slaves listened to the yells of the guards and cultist. What was going on? Was a monster attacking? Was it going come for them next? These questions flew the slave's minds at a million miles per second. Each child edged closer to the old man fearfully.

A few heavy 'thumps' were heard just outside the door making everyone inside freeze in their place. The old man, Rob, took up a weak defensive stance to try and protect the children from whatever was outside that door. The lock on the door suddenly dropped to the ground with a loud 'clunk' and the door swung open to reveal a blond boy, about Erza and Jellal's age, maybe a bit older standing there, he had a strange trident like weapon on his back and other than a few scratches he looked fine.

"W-who are you and what do you want?" Rob asked the boy nervously, not dropping his defensive stance.

"Me? My name is Naruto Gurgite," the blond boy said, "As for what I want; I want to get everyone out of here as soon as possible."

The slaves looked at the now smiling boy with an awed look on their face before it finally set in. _There was still hope._

Naruto walking into the cell and extended his hand out to them, "Are you with me?" he asked.

One of the slaves stepped forward, "Why? Why do you want to free us?" the boy asked, not daring to believe any of this, "What's in it for you?"

The other slaves looked at Naruto then back to the boy who asked the question. He was right, what was in it for their supposed 'saviour'? Why would he risk his life to come out and save a load of people he didn't know?

Naruto pretended to look thoughtful for a moment before answering, "Everyone has a right to freedom and no-one deserves to have it taken away, that and I promised myself that I would free all of the slaves in here personally and I never break my promises." he explained, "Now get of your asses and fight for your freedom!"

The blond turned and stepped back outside the cell, water suddenly coated his hands. He slammed his two fists onto the ground and sent a large wave at the platoon of guards heading his way.

"Y-you're a mage?" the red headed girl with an eye patch spoke up. Naruto growled, those bastards probably did this to her.

Naruto looked at her and smiled widely, "Yup, I'm a water mage to be exact." he said, "what's your name?"

"E-erza." The girl, erza stuttered.

"Nice to meet you Erza now let's go; if you want your freedom, you're gonna have to fight for it." Naruto stated, now with a determined look on his face. Erza gulped and had a determined look of her own.

"Yeah, we have to fight for our freedom!" she said feeling much more confident now. Feeling inspired by her words the other slaves got up and joined her. This made Naruto smile at them.

"Come on I'll show you the way out." Naruto shouted as he ran off down the corridor, using _Nejibana_ to cut off all the locks on the cell doors to allow all the slaves out.

"You worthless pieces of shit, you think you can rebel? Kill them, kill them all!" The cult leader yelled to his army. Both slaves and slave drivers charged at each other, battle cries heard from everyone.

"Leave no survivors!" Naruto heard someone yell, "Call in the mages get this over quickly!" Naruto growled this was about to get complicated. He looked back at Erza and the others saying,

"Erza, make sure you fight only the guards, I got the mages!" Erza nodded and started giving orders the other slaves.

Naruto sighed, he really didn't want to use this spell but right now it was his best option to take out the large numbers of enemies that they were facing right now and not risk harming the slaves he was trying to help. Knocking all the guards and mages around him unconscious, Naruto put _Nejibana_ back on his back, closed his eyes and took a deep breath and focused.

'_Okay, all the slaves are my allies and the guards and mages here definitely aren't my friends so now, let's get on with it.'_ he thought.

Erza eyed Naruto, he had just stopped and had his eyes closed like he was concentrating hard, _'What are you doing?' _she thought, going back to fighting the guards.

"_Himitsu no suiro no gureito ribaiasan _(Secret water dragon's great Leviathan)!" Naruto yelled and inhaled deeply and when he exhaled a blue magic circle appeared then an enormous serpentine creature made of water erupted from the magic circle.

Everyone, slaves, guards and mages alike watching in shock and horror at the massive water creature appeared and started striking all around the fight zone. The only thing is that every time the monster struck, only the guards and mages were being harmed despite the slaves being hit by the watery creature as well.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?" a guard yelled, trying to escape the monsters wrath but was unsuccessful.

Erza looked back at a panting Naruto with a shock expression; he could do all this by himself? Just how strong was he?

Naruto stood bent over, trying to catch his breath, _'Damn it, that spell still takes it out of me.'_ he looked round to see what was happening and thankfully the Leviathan was doing its job as most of the guards and mages lay unconscious on the ground while the slave, though very wet, looked just fine.

After another straight minute of the water snakes attacks it finally evaporated leaving only a few of the guards and mages standing and the Slaves were left relatively unharmed. It took a few seconds before they realised that the monster was gone and started fighting again. Naruto was still catching his breath when he saw a mage step out of the shadow's and fire a beam of energy at Erza who stood frozen in shock at the sight of the beam.

The blond watched in horror as the old man jumped in front of energy blast, _'No!' _he thought, '_That will kill him for sure!' _picking _Nejibana_ off of his back Naruto used a _Mizu no Suteppu_ (water step) to appear right in front of both Erza and the old man in a defensive position there was no time to use his _suiro no uroko _(Water Dragon's scales).

The blast hit and Erza was knocked to the ground.

The red head looked up and saw Rob standing looking untouched by the blast, _'What? Why was Grandpa Rob not hurt by that?' _but when the smoke cleared she saw Naruto, the person who had risked his life to free them, standing in front of both of both her and Rob, his stretched out in front of him and his trident like weapon in his hands. His shirt and coat now gone, burns littering his arms and torso.

Before Erza could do anything, Naruto disappeared in a splash of water and reappeared in front of the mage who had fired the beam then knocked him out. Naruto leaned against the wall for support,

'_Damn, I'm going to be feeling that one for weeks.' _He looked at the burns on his arms, _'Nothing I can do about it now.'_ the blond mage turned around turned around continue fighting but was stopped when a magical force erupted grabbing everyone's attention.

Naruto looked round and saw Erza with her hands raised up in front of her, a furious expression on her face and a purple magic circle spinning below her. All the weapons lying around started to rise up into the air and attack the cultists.

Naruto broke out into a massive grin, "Nice work Erza!" he yelled over to the girl.

The cultist were quickly overwhelmed by the revolt and where being driven back to the main gates of the tower.

"Well, we may as well take the front door with us." He turned to the slaves, "Stand back, things are about be blown up."

"_Suiro no hoko! _(Water dragon's roar" Naruto yelled as the large, spiralling blast of water cut through the remaining cultists and blew open the gates.

Everyone looked between Naruto and the door in awe at the destruction the twelve year old could cause.

"I've seen many things in my life but this boy... this boy is incredible." Rob muttered awed by the boy's strength, taking a seat against on a nearby stone bench needing to rest his old bones.

Just as they were about to go through the now demolished gates a little girl asked,

"Wait, where is Erza?" everyone looked around but couldn't find her. Naruto muttered some curses under his breath.

"She went back to get Jellal." said Rob tiredly.

Naruto sighed, "Right you guys go on, follow the path it will lead you to some boats, I'll get Erza and catch up." the nodded and went on to the boats.

Naruto sniffed the air, locating Erza's sent and took off to try and find her. Annoyingly, he was slowed down by the burns on his torso and arms.

.oOo.

Erza had just located Jellal, freed of his restraints but something was wrong with him; he kept muttering about true freedom being here at the tower and that he was not leaving. Erza pleaded with him, explaining that their friend were waiting for them, but he wouldn't he wouldn't listen, instead he just used some strange powers to beat up some cultists to an inch of their life. Jellal then went on a rant, something about completing the tower and Zeref.

Erza thought his actions had something to do with the fact he had just been tortured for hours, she put her foot down and declared that they were leaving. Jellal then turned on her and sent a wave of magic at her and sent her crashing into a nearby wall. She fell to the ground and rolled in pain. Erza looked at her friend, he was gone, he'd lost his mind and she felt tears well up at the sight of her friend.

"I don't need you any more, I've gotten rid of all the nuisances in my life but I'll let you live for helping me remove them, go have your fleeting _'freedom'" _He spat out the word like it was a pile of dirt and sneered at her, at look that never belonged on any eleven year old.

"Leaver her be!" A voice rang out, Erza and Jellal looked up and saw Naruto standing there, water swirling angrily over his clenched fists.

"Who are you and what do you want?" Jellal demanded of the blond.

"I'm Naruto Gurgite." the blond replied, "And I'm her for Erza." As soon as he finished speaking he water stepped in front of Jellal and punched him away from Erza. He picked up said girl and turned to leave.

"No!" Erza shouted, "We can't leave him" she reached out to the blue haired boy who was steadying himself and rubbing his cheek.

Naruto glanced back at the boy with sad eyes, "Stop it, he's gone, there is no hope for him." with he ran as fast as he could, but with his injuries and the fact he was holding erza it wasn't that fast.

The tower started rumbling and falling apart, "Damn." Naruto muttered and picked up his speed, dodging the falling debris.

Erza looked up to her savior, "Thank you..." she mumbled before passing out.

A few minutes later Naruto made it to a boat, handed Erza up to rob and climbed in himself. Seconds later the world around him started spinning as his wounds and exhaustion caught up to him and he passed out onto the deck.

.oOo.

Naruto woke up, lying of something soft and looking up to at a wooded ceiling. "Urgh, what happened last night?" he muttered rubbing his head trying to ebb the throbbing pain.

"Nothing much, we waited for you to wake up, that's all." A voice joked. Naruto looked over and saw Rob sitting beside him, "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Just a little sore is all." Naruto replied, he felt something shift on his other side, looking over he saw a sleeping Erza laying curled up beside him.

"She's been like that since she found out that you unconscious." Rob said, smiling at the eleven year old girl, "She wouldn't leave your side, I had to bring food to her."

Naruto smiled at the girl lying beside him, he then noticed the bandages rapped all around his arms and torso,

"When did you do this?" the blond asked Rob and the old man chuckled.

"Last night, there were a few first aid kits around the boat so I used them to patch you up." he replied, "It took a while but I got it done."

Naruto smiled gratefully at the old man, "Thanks old man, I owe you one."

Rob just shook his head, "My boy, you save everyone from the horrid tower and gave us all our freedom back, patching you up is very least I can do."

Naruto just shrugged, "Either way thanks."

The two sat in silence for a few minutes, Erza's light snores being the only sound being made. It was almost too silent. Eventually a thought struck the blond mage,

"Hey old man, where is everyone else?" he asked.

Rob looked thoughtful for a moment before answering, "Well, we arrived at land about two hours ago, most everyone got off straight away, just wanting to get home I guess, as for the other ships, well I don't know what happened to them, they must've landed in different places, who knows?" Rob answered.

Again the pair sat in silence, Naruto, unconsciously started to stroke Erza's short red hair making Rob smile at the sight,

'_Those two would make quite the pair when they get older.'_ his thoughts then travelled to the young blonds abilities, he quietly shook his head, _'In all my years as a mage, I've seen one quite so powerful at such a young age, it is simply incredible.' _

"My boy, do you happen to be part of a magical guild?" Rob asked the boy curiously.

Naruto just shook his head negative, "No, at least not yet, but there is one that I want to join when done my training."

Rob was slightly surprised by the fact that the blond was still in training but he pressed for another question, "And which on might that be?" Naruto smiled fondly,

"Fairy Tail"

"Oh, you too, eh?" Rob was surprised again but this time at the coincidence of his statement, "Erza wants to join Fairy Tail as well, and now that she can use magic, it'll be possible for her to fulfil that dream of hers. I think you two will fit right in with that band of misfits anyway and goodness know that Makarov is always looking for more members to add to the Fairy Tail family."

Naruto looked surprised for a minute, "Wait you know the Master?" he had read about Makarov in some magazines and the paper; despite how old the man was, he was said to be one of the most powerful mages in all of Fiore, one of the Ten Wizard Saints.

Rob smiled proudly, "Yes, as a matter of fact I do, I was a part of the guild, Makarov and I were close friends and went on lot of adventures together. He cares a lot for his family, he does." the old man turned around to show Naruto the guild mark on his back. Naruto's view of the old man changed as he looked at the old man with a hint of reverence and a small sparkle in his eyes.

After a few more minutes quite, Naruto went back to stroking Erza's hair until he glanced at the eye patch covering her right eye, the thought of what those bastards must have done to her in that god forsaken tower made him angry,

"Hey, if you don't mind me asking, but what happened to Erza's eye?" Naruto asked. Rob sighed sadly, it really wasn't a nice story to tell, but after all the boy had done he may as well know,

"It happened about two weeks ago, the kids decided to try and escape but of course they were caught but those bastards only punished Erza, they tortured her for hours on end and cut out her eye. I wanted to give her mine using my magic but the age gape between us was too big." It made Rob mad just thinking about it and buy the looks of it Naruto wasn't exactly bucketing joy either in fact Naruto almost looked conflicted.

"I'll do it." Rob looked puzzled by the blonds' statement.

"Do what?" the old man questioned.

"I'll give Erza my eye." Naruto said, without missing a beat.

Rob was shocked, this twelve year old boy had given everyone their back their freedom, asked nothing in return was now offering to give his eye to a girl he barely even knows. Either the kid was one of the greatest human beings in the world or he was a crazy motherfucker.

"Why would you do that? You have done so much already." Rob asked the boy.

Naruto grinned and said, "Well, both Erza and I want to join Fairy Tail and you mentioned the Fairy Tail treat each other like family so I'm just doing for her what I would do for my family."

Tears welled up in the old mage's eyes; this boy truly was a great human being. Rob nodded,

"Right, the magic I use is called Exchange Magic, like the name suggests, I can swap anything, even body part like a leg for a leg or in your case an eye for an eye but since Erza doesn't have an eye to exchange with, you will lose your eye. Are you sure you will go through with this?" Rob explained what to make sure the boy knew what he was doing.

Naruto just gave Rob a firm nod of confirmation, "Alright, close your right eye." the old man told the blond. Naruto did just that, then Rob placed one hand over Naruto's right eye and the other over Erza's,

"This will feel uncomfortable." Rob warned, "_Ekkusuchuanju _(exchange)."

Naruto fought back a wince, when the old man said that it would be uncomfortable he really wasn't joking; it literally felt like his eye was being sucked out while at the same time t was slowly getting smaller and smaller. After a minute, the exchange was done.

"Thank you boy for all you have done." Rob said gratefully to the boy but Naruto just waved it off.

Naruto slowly stood up and loosened his joints, "Well, I think I had better get going know. Do you know where my weapon is?" Naruto asked Rob.

Rob nodded and reached under the bench he was sitting on and pulled out _Nejibana_ then gave it to the blond, "Thanks old man, I'll see you around." he bade farewell to the old mage taking note of the tears glistening in his eyes.

When Naruto got off the boat and looked around the beach that the boat had landed on a saw that he was at Akane Resort. He sighed as he realised that he had a long journey to get back to Hargeon and collect his reward for catching those kidnappers. Naruto had to laugh as he remembered how this whole adventure had begun.

The blond mage was barely walking for a minute when he heard hurried footsteps in the sand; he turned around and was tackled by a crying Erza, her brown and blue eyes glistening with tears.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you." she repeated over and over in between sobs, as Naruto patted her back.

"Now, now, Erza, don't go over using that new eye of yours." Naruto joked, "I only want one thing in return for that eye."

"What do you want, I'll give anything." Erza said wanting to know what she could do for the man who had not only saved her but given her his right eye.

"Go join Fairy Tail and become the strong." Naruto said simply. "I'll be joining Fairy Tail soon and I want you to become stronger by the time I get there alright."

Erza nodded eagerly, rubbing the tears from her eyes and sniffing thickly, "I'll be the strongest." she said determinedly.

Naruto hugged her, "That's the spirit." he said to her.

.oOo.

*Naruto's clearing, ten miles west of Hargeon, next morning."

By the time Naruto made it back to his clearing the sun had already risen and said blond looked like the walking dead.

"What happened to you?" Oceanus asked, looking over the blonds bandaged wounds and closed eye.

"Let's just say that an eye for an eye doesn't always make the world blind." Naruto said cryptically as he collapsed onto his hammock, not even bothering to get undressed and fell asleep.

Oceanus snorted, "Crazy human." he mumbled.

**And scene**

**6,778 words, I think that's long enough don't you? I hope you enjoyed it. Here are the Poll results so far;**

**Naruto/Harem = 42**

**Naruto/Older Wendy = 37**

**Naruto/Erza = 28**

**Naruto/Mirajane = 19**

**So, so far the Harem is winning, I think that next chapter or two I'll decide what the pairing will be, I do have an idea for them and as I said I will do other stories for other pairings the people wanted so that will hopefully keep everyone happy. Anyways, until next time,**

**Ja Ne**


	5. Chapter 5

**Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto**

**Fairy Tail © Hiro Mashima**

_**Chapter Five**_

*Naruto's Clearing, Fiore, X777*

After his, not so, little adventure to the Tower of Heaven, it took Naruto about three weeks to heal up enough for him to continue his training and doing missions again but during that time Naruto told Oceanus about how he found the island, freed the slaves and gave his right eye to Erza. After the blond finished his tale, the old dragon loudly proclaimed that he had never been prouder of the boy, that and how great his teaching skills were causing Naruto to swear drop, and that he was going to brag endlessly to Metallicana, Igneel and Grandeeney next time he came into contact with them.

For the next few months, Naruto spent his time either training his Dragon Slayer magic, Water magic or honing his skills with _Nejibana_. His mastery over his water magic was a force to be reckoned with, it was to the point that he didn't have to use his Dragon Slayer abilities nor use an already existing source of water to produce the needed amount of water to perform his spells, he could just pull water out of the atmosphere! Not to mention his ability with _Nejibana_ only helped him along with the near endless water that the weapon could create.

For his Thirteenth birthday, Grace and her parents had bought Naruto a cake and a present from each of them; from Grace he got a water droplet shaped silver pendent that had a picture of the two of them on her last birthday and from her parents he got photo album that had pictures of all of them at different times during the past few years. As Naruto flicked through the album, he saw that it was barely a quarter full, when he asked Grace's parent's why they just responded saying that he will most likely go off and meet more people and will create more memories with them and they wanted him to have room to remember them. The sentiment behind both the pendent and the album brought Naruto to tears and pulled all three of the small into a bone crushing hug.

Right now, Oceanus was explaining the final form of Dragon Slayer magic to the blond, Dragon Force.

"Alright brat listen up, Dragon Force is not only the most powerful form of Dragon Slayer magic as it gives you the strength not unlike a dragon, it is also the most dangerous as if you are to use it when you don't have it mastered then it will have heavy after effects on your body." Oceanus explained to Naruto.

"Why's that?" Naruto questioned, cocking his head to the side slightly.

"Because of the huge strain it puts on your body by pushing it well beyond its normal limits to make you faster, stronger and much more durable, if used improperly then it would leave you unable to walk for weeks." Oceanus sighed at his foster son's; he thought that much would at least be obvious.

"Okay!" Naruto said determinedly, "How do I use it then?"

"Using it is simple enough but activating it and then mastering it are the hard parts." the old dragon stated, "There are several ways you can achieve Dragon Force, the first way is that you consume a substance powerful enough to activate it, preferably one related to water, like my roar for example but if you were consume a different substance then it would make you extremely ill afterwards."

His words echoed around in Naruto's head, making him gulp, this Dragon Force thing was dangerous, not only for the people that faced it but for the one using it.

"The other way is to release so much magic that it will automatically activate Dragon Force. This way is much safer for you but it is harder to do because the amount of magic needed changes depending on the person, place and circumstance that it is being used." the dragon continued, "for example, if the air around you is pure or you are in a magical area then it will take less magic to use but if, this also applies to a life or death situation but if the circumstances were the opposite then it would take more magic."

Naruto nodded in understanding, suddenly feeling very eager to get stated, "So, when are will you start teaching me?" almost bouncing in his cross-legged position in front of the dragon.

Oceanus snorted at the kid's enthusiasm, "Hold it brat, I want to do something about that blind eye of yours first before I go teaching you this."

Naruto stared at the blue dragon for a few second, "Oh... Hey! Wait a minute! You said that was nothing you could do!" he yelled, getting up and glaring. The blond remembered when he joked about Oceanus giving him a dragon's eye to replace the one he gave him but the dragon didn't seem to get the humour and replied saying that 'a dragon's eye was about the same size of his head and would be impractical and nothing could done.' But it had been a real pain trying fix his now out hand-eye co-ordination.

The water dragon growled at the boy's accusation, "I said no such thing, if I remember correctly what I said was 'There was nothing I could do _until_ I thought of something' so quit it brat and be grateful I thought of this."

"But that was months ago and you're only thinking for something now... are you going senile?" Naruto asked the old dragon dryly.

"Do you want a replacement eye or not?" the water dragon received a nod in response, "Then sit down and shut the hell up."

When Naruto sat back down, Oceanus lifted one of his mighty claws up and held it in front of the blonds' closed, empty eye socket, "This is gonna hurt a bitch." the dragon warned. Naruto nodded and braced himself for the pain.

"_Woata meiku: Ryu no me. _(Water Make: Dragons eye)" Oceanus mumbled. Water started to swirl around the tip of his claw, forming a small sphere and then sank into his son's eye socket. The young mage started screaming in pain.

Naruto was expecting pain but not this; it was like his eye was being pieced with a frozen dagger while the inside of his skull was being scrapped with steel wool. It was utter and complete agony. After three minutes the pain ended, Naruto was left lying on the ground curled up in a ball, panting heavily.

The blond sat up shaking heavily; he rubbed the mixture of blood and water that was now seeping from his closed eye.

"Open your eye slowly, let it adjust to the light and let me see it." Oceanus said softly.

The blond did as he was told. He opened his eye a slowly as possible, letting his new formed eye adjust as best it could. His new eye was the colour of an amber gem with a slit-like pupil, it seemed to ripple like a pond in the wind; it was odd to look at but definitely cool. It looked just like the dragon's that made it.

'_I good work on my part if I do say so myself.'_ The dragon thought, giving himself a mental pat on the back.

"How do you feel kid?" asked the old dragon, looking at the panting boy.

"Like crap, I can see just fine now, but god damn that hurt like hell." Naruto seethed, checking his eye in a nearby puddle, he was both a water mage and a Water Dragon Slayer plus he was constantly in the presence of a water dragon so there was always a puddle nearby, "I gotta say, it looks good, I... Hey this is a dragon's eye! What happened to a dragons' eye being the same size as my head?"

"They are, but this eye I made for you is mad of water and Dragon Magic so it isn't actually a dragons' eye but it works just like one; it can see through most illusions, its vision is near perfect, to the point you could spot an ant from a hundred feet away." Oceanus replied, with no small pride in his work, "The best part about it is that it is permanent."

"_Sugoi_!" Naruto exclaimed he jumped up but clutched his hand over his new eye in pain at the sudden movement.

"Careful, you need to let it adjust properly." The water dragon said.

"Fine, fine," Naruto muttered, going back and sitting on his hammock, "I didn't know you could use Water Make magic."

Oceanus snorted, "Of course I can, I use most forms of water magic like, Igneel can use most forms of fire magic or Grandeeney can use most forms of sky or wind magic."

Naruto pouted and folded his arms over his chest grumpily, "How come you have taught me any of that? I bet that Igneel and Grandeeney have taught their Dragon Slayers a load of different magic." he said childishly.

"You're wrong; dragons are bound by an ancient law that forbids us from teaching our Dragon Slayers anything other than Dragon Slayer magic, something to do with it not being within our rights; bullshit I say plus you've been doing just fine on your own without my help." Oceanus grunted.

Naruto quirked an eyebrow at the dragon, "But I thought the Grandeeney was helping her Dragon Slayer with her healing magic."

"That is true but Healing magic falls under Grandeeney's form of Dragon Slayer magic as she is what you human's would call a medic, in a way." The water dragon said simply, "While Grandeeney is easily as strong as me, Igneel or Metallicana, she has never been one for fighting, and she prefers to heal people up while teasing them endlessly." Oceanus sighed, remembering all the times he'd gone to her for healing after his many fights with Igneel and Metallicana only to be teased mercilessly by Grandeeney mercilessly... but at least she got the job done when needed to so it was a small price to pay.

"Haha, she must be a blast at parties," Naruto laughed happily, "I can't wait to meet her Dragon Slayer."

"Actually, from what she has told me, her Dragon Slayer, Wendy, is very nervous and unconfident girl." The dragon said, cutting Naruto's laughter short.

"Ah well, I can't wait to meet her either way." the blond countered carelessly, "Want a game of Ja-ken-pon while we wait for my start working properly?"

Oceanus sighed, his foster son always suggested this when he was waiting for something and needed to pass the time. The mighty dragon lifted his fist up, "Your on brat, prepare to lose."

~Time skip, 6th July X777, evening~

Many weeks passed since Oceanus created a new dragon's eye for Naruto out of water and since Naruto started training to achieve Dragon Force but since then, Oceanus seemed to getting sadder by the day, something Naruto didn't like to see in his foster father, and when he asked the old dragon just brushed it off then changed the topic.

Right now the thirteen year old blond mage was standing by the ocean, the forest behind him. He was panting heavily, he was covered in water and his pendent glistened in the setting sunlight. He'd been out since about mid-afternoon trying to achieve his Dragon Force, only stopping to eat and drink, but he couldn't even feel it. Oceanus said that when he was close to Dragon Force he would feel it but there was nothing, not even a glimmer of that strength that the final form of Dragon Slayer magic promised. It frustrated Naruto to no end.

The sound of heavy footsteps took Naruto out of his wandering thoughts as he looked over to see Oceanus appear out of the trees behind him,

"Naruto, come on it's time to eat, that's enough training for today." The old dragon said, then simply turning back towards their little camp.

Naruto raised his eyebrows at Oceanus' comment; he almost never called him by his name, so what brought this on? The thirteen year old just shrugged; it was a welcome change for him,

"Coming, _tou-san_!" Naruto called out, jogging as quickly as he could.

~7th July X777~

Naruto woke rather late today; it was unusual as Oceanus would have at least sent a ball of water at him by now, in fact, where the hell was the old over sized iguana anyways? The blond looked around and nothing, no sign of the dragon, no heavy breaths that probably could wake the dead and even the sense of power that Oceanus radiated was gone.

"Old man!" Naruto yelled as he jumped off his hammock and started to run around the entire surrounding area but once again... not a sigh of him.

After hours of fruitless searching the sun was high in the sky signalling noon. Naruto looked at the clearing that he had called home for the last seven years, tears rolling down his cheeks. The blond smiled sadly at nothing and everything,

"Looks like my training is over, huh?" He muttered, remembering his promise from a year ago, "_Tou-san."_

.oOo.

~Meanwhile in Fairy Tail Guild Hall~

"MATCHSTICK!"

"SNOW-CONE!"

"SMOKE BUTT!"

"SNOWMAN!"

It must've been a record; one Natsu Dragneel a boy of about ten years of age and the newest recruit to Fairy Tail had already gotten into a fight with another member, Gray Fullbuster, a boy of the same age, after being in the guild for about ten minutes. It had to be a record of some sort.

Makarov Dryer, the Third Guild Master of Fairy Tail and one of the Ten Wizard Saints. Despite being old and extremely short he was definitely not a man you want to mess with but right now his head was throbbing; he'd just got back after finding Natsu, bringing him to the guild, he'd planned on having the Rose haired boy introduced and made part of the guild then sitting at the bar to drink some much needed liquor while watching the shenanigans of his children. But no, Gray just had to go and insult Natsu by saying that Dragon's weren't real and there was no way he could be a Dragon Slayer.

The pair continued to glare knives, daggers, spoons and just about anything else you could think of at each other. At that moment a twelve year old Erza Scarlet looked like she was about knock the two boy's heads together in an attempt to shut them up, but was stopped by one Gildarts Clive, the strongest mage in Fairy Tail, next to the master of course.

"Hey now, calm down both of you," the giant man said from the bar, both Gray and Natsu quietened down, with the latter gaping open mouthed at him, "Gray remember when I told you about the Dragon Slayer in Hargeon town a year ago?" Gildarts asked.

The entire guild, bar Makarov, Laxus and Erza, looked shocked at the large man.

"No." they all said in unison.

Gildarts sweat dropped, '_oh yeah, I forgot to tell them... again'_

"You met another Dragon Slayer!" Natsu yelled excitably, "Who was he? Do you think he will know where Igneel is?" the young questioned the S-ranked mage making him sigh,

"To answer your questions in order; yes, I did. His name is Naruto and no, I don't." he replied, "But I may as well tell you about him."

The guild members looked on to Gildarts with eager expressions; it wasn't often he shared one of his quest stories with them.

"Well, remember a year ago when I went out on the mission to eliminate the Dark Guild, Spirit's Grim," they nodded, "Well on my way back, I stopped in Hargeon town for the day for a little break, when I met this kid named Naruto and his little sister Grace. I sensed a strong magical power in him, stronger for a boy his age, and some magic in Grace too. Anyways we talked for a bit, he was a good kid, taking his _imoto_ out shopping." Gildarts said, pondering the memory.

"Sounds like a good kid." Makao said getting some form of agreement from everyone, even Mirajane. Erza smiled, a light blush colouring her cheeks, listening about Naruto and his little sister. Over the last year she had developed a bit of a crush on the blond Dragon Slayer in her training to become strong.

"Well after parting ways, I went off to get some lunch then about three hours later there was a commotion at the Hargeon Bank. I went to take a look and not minutes later Naruto showed up beside me at the back of the crowd without little Grace, I guess he finished shopping and left her home or something, we went to take a look up front and saw a group of six mages robbing the bank, two out front holding hostages, the cowards, and the other four inside stealing all the money. After a few more words were swapped, the was a splash and all of a sudden Naruto was beside the first hitting him with a jet of water, knocking him out then hitting the second robber with an attack I think he called the _Water pressure sphere_." Gildarts continued,

"How old id this kid?" Wabaka asked.

Gildarts looked thoughtful for a moment before answering, "He's about a year older than Erza and Mirajane." Most members were shocked by this; it wasn't often you heard about a twelve year old kid beating up two fully grown mages, Dragon Slayer or not.

"Anyway, were was I? Ah, yes. Two of the mages inside came out only to be knocked unconscious by the boy. When he went inside, I followed just to the door of the bank to get a better view and step in if needed but he beat the fifth mage with ease but I thought things would get difficult for Naruto when I saw that the leader of the group was holding _Nejibana_." Makarov held back a grin having already pieced together what type of Dragon Slayer he was but the guild members that knew of the weapon stiffened slightly, "Naruto challenged him to a fight and honestly, it was short; the leader bragged about _Nejibana_ and sent a large wave of water at him but Naruto just grinned. I was about to step in but almost as soon as the attack hit the boy; it dispersed and was eaten by Naruto who then just thanked the lead robber for the meal then fired a spell called_ Suiro no Hoko _which pretty much destroyed the bank and beat the robbers. Nothing much happened after that; I got _Nejibana_, gave it to Naruto, found out he was a Water Dragon Slayer and then invited him to Fairy Tail which he said he'd join when he finished training."

The entire guild hall sat in silence for a few minutes as they absorbed what Gildarts had told them. Master Makarov broke the silence by letting out a hearty laugh,

"Well, that boy is welcome here anytime," the old guild master said jovially. He saw the orange haired man sneak a small glance at Erza but did nothing.

Erza smiled at the thought of Naruto joining Fairy Tail soon. She couldn't wait.

.oOo.

~Meanwhile in Naruto's Clearing~

Naruto sneezed for the umpteenth time in the past ten minutes and it was really starting to grate of his nerves. He was packing his stuff getting ready to say goodbye to Grace then head to Magnolia and join Fairy Tail.

"Ah, ah, ah, ACHOO! Goddamn, who the hell is talking about me so much!" the blond yelled angrily causing birds to fly from the tree tops. It was going to be a long day.

**And scene**

**Right, I know this is much shorter than the last one but please, I've had trouble writing this as it is, I dunno why, I actually did plan on making it longer but I guess I just lost the will... BUT FEAR NOT! As I have planned the next chapter perfectly and it will be longer and up quicker.**

**One thing I wanna do is put an end to some things people keep telling me, first being that **_**'Naruto without his memories isn't really Naruto.'**_** well I just wanna say that Naruto WILL regain his memories, but for now you'll have to put up with it. another thing is the names I use and translations, I admit that it is a laziness on my part but if you don't like it, it isn't my problem so don't go whining to me ya pussies. And finally I will add my own story arc to explain why Naruto has been (subconsciously) remembering things from his past so please be patient.**

**I'VE DECIDED! The pairing has finally be been decided and it will be Naruto x Erza x Older Wendy x Juvia. I added Juvia because she is one of my favourite characters and I know just how to add her in. I honestly was thinking about either Cana or Lucy and maybe even Mira but I decided against them, sorry to those who wanted them. I am still planning on writing a story for each pairing (single pairings) to make up for it (they will be full length, just not updated too often) and to those who don't like Harem, sorry again.**

**Poll results**

**Naruto/Harem- 91**

**Naruto/Erza- 64**

**Naruto/Older Wendy- 62**

**Naruto/Mirajane- 37**

**Anyways, tell me what you think and how I can improve. Until next time,**

**Ja Ne **


	6. Chapter 6

**Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto**

**Fairy Tail © Hiro Mashima**

_**Chapter Six**_

**~Dreamscape~**

_Drip, drip, drip_

The sound of dripping water echoed as Naruto ran, ran as fast as he could, he had no idea why but he did. It was a poorly lit tunnel, almost like a sewer; water flooded the floor up to his ankles and large pipes that radiated a powerful and malicious aura snaked their way along the ceiling and walls. Every so often the tunnel would branch off in different directions and for some reason, Naruto ran down a few of them.

The blond had no idea where he was or why he was there but something was compelling him to move this way, it was almost like he knew the route by heart yet he was sure he'd never been her in his life. The tunnel itself felt strange, almost... nostalgic like the evil presence being given off by the pipes didn't even bother him.

"_Naruto."_ a voice called out, it was as definitely female and was as sweet as honey.

"What? Who's there?" Naruto called back, a slight tone of nervousness seeping into his voice, but there was no reply.

"_Naruto."_ another voice called, this time a male's.

Almost instantly Naruto found himself standing in the middle of a giant dark chamber. It was so dark that the blond could barely see his hand in front of his face, even with his dragons' eye but the ominous pipes glowed in the darkness all leading to one point in the in the back of the chamber... were evil red eyes glowed in the darkness; both of them glaring at him with a look of pure disgust and hatred. It sent a fearful shudder down his spine

"_**NARUTO!"**_

_**.oOo.**_

~Naruto's clearing, Fiore, 8/7/X777~

Naruto woke with a start, a cold sweat running down his face, and he was panting for breath. Was it a dream? I was too vivid to be a dream, there was something wrong about it... it was like it was a... no, it couldn't have been, it was impossible. Naruto shook his head and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

'_It must've been something I ate last night.'_ he thought.

The blond was just about to call out to Oceanus when he remembered the previous day. Oceanus was gone. Naruto sighed sadly and looked around his clearing; the ground was chopped up and muddy from him walking on it so much plus all the water magic he and the old lizard had used over the years. A sad smile spread its way across the young mages face; he could almost see the ghosts of himself and Oceanus arguing over just about anything. But honestly, Naruto wouldn't have had it any other way.

After getting out of his hammock, Naruto cleaned himself down, using his water magic and got changed then ate a quick breakfast. He'd packed his things up the previous night after he'd given up on his search for Oceanus. After his small breakfast of some berries and a squirrel, Naruto took down his hammock; he'd bought a good one in Hargeon after the one he made had rotted away, rolled it up, and put it away in his backpack. With last look around his home, Naruto smiled sadly once again; he was having one of those rare feelings of a true and final goodbye.

.oOo.

~Hargeon Town~

Naruto walked up to Grace's home, he wanted to tell her where he was going, after all, she was his _imouto_ and she be very upset at him if he didn't. Naruto didn't like it when she was upset. He shivered slightly; the last time she was upset, Grace started crying and he had to buy her an ice-cream to get her to stop then there was the fact he just hated seeing her upset. The blond mage did sense some magic in the girl; it made him hopeful that she'd be a mage when she got older.

He knocked on the door of Grace's home and a few minutes later the six year olds' mother opened the door smiling at the boy, despite her young age, her hair was starting to grey and thin out. About six months ago her husband, Grace's father was admitted into hospital after a major accident and died two days later. Naruto could tell that she was being strong for Grace's sake but she was slowly dying of a broken heart and a terrible illness that attacked the heart. There is no known cure for it. Something that saddened the blond mage greatly.

"Ah, Naruto-kun, what brings you here so early? You usually don't arrive until three." she asked curiously.

"Hey, I know but I got some news, I was wandering if I could come in?" said Naruto.

"Of course, but please at least call me Hana or kaa-san, okay?" Hana replied smiling kindly to the boy, stepping out of the way to let him in. A few years ago on her birthday, Grace, being the ever innocent child that she was, asked Naruto that if he was her brother then did that mean that her mommy and daddy were his too. The question caused her parents to burst out laughing and Naruto choke on the cake he was eating. Ever since then Grace's parents had insisted he call them mom and dad, which Naruto did his best to avoid.

Naruto walked past her, "Thanks... Hana-Okaa-san." he muttered finally giving in to her request at last.

The thirteen year old sat down on the couch in the living room. The room was a decent size, the walls were coloured a homely cream with the a few shell-like patterns painted in every so often. The furniture was very simple yet comfortable. The best thing for a house with a growing, hyper active child living it.

Minutes later, Grace burst into the room, still in to her pyjamas and latched onto the blond, prompting him to let out a small 'oomf'.

"NARUTO-NII!" she squealed happily, hugging Naruto tightly.

"Heya Grace, how ya doin'?" he asked the six year old.

The purple haired girl looked up at him with wide, sparkling brown eyes and a massive grin, "I'm very, very, very good, Naruto-nii!" Grace proclaimed happily letting out a loud giggle. For Naruto it was one of the cutest things in the world. Hana looked on at the two with a happy glimmer in her eyes.

Naruto's happy expression suddenly turned rather sad, "Grace, I have some news for you, but you may not like It." he said, looking at the six year old. Grace looked up at her old brother figure with her wide innocent eyes,

"What is it, Naruto-nii?" she asked him, not liking the sad look he was wearing. She hated seeing him sad, it was almost as bad as the look her mommy had when her daddy left.

The look almost made Naruto not tell her, but he had to do it, deciding to bite the bullet he just said it, "I'm moving to another town today." there was silence as Grace processed what the older boy had said. Tears slowly stared to well up in her eyes,

"You're leaving...?" she sniffed, tears now rolling freely down her cheeks, "Like my daddy?"

Before the little girl could say anything else, Naruto pulled her into a firm hug and said, "No, I'll come see you every weekend, okay? And every other chance I get." he hugged her tighter, letting her know that he wasn't going anywhere.

"R-really?" Naruto nodded.

The blond mage let go of the six year old girl and grinned, "Trust me, you won't even notice I'm gone." He tickled her sides making her giggle madly. Hana suddenly broke out in a violent coughing fit. Naruto shot up to the woman,

"Are you alright, Hana-okaa-san?" he asked her in a concerned tone. He knew it was a stupid question but it was only polite to ask.

Hana just smiled and waved it off as if nothing had happened, "It's nothing, I'm fine." she said, "Just got a little something caught in the back of my throat is all." the blond knew she was lying but he let it go. There was nothing they or anyone else could do about it.

Naruto turned back and gave Grace a tight hug, "I'll see you later, okay, _imouto?"_

Grace nodded enthusiastically, "Uh huh, see ya later Naruto-nii!" after that she skipped out of with room without a care in the world, probably to go play or something.

Naruto spotted the sad look in Hana's eyes as she watched her daughter skip out of the room as happy as can be, "Naruto," she said, "You know what is happening to me, right?" Naruto nodded, almost wishing he didn't

"Well, I want you to know that, when I go, I want you to look after Grace for me." Hana said, not looking away from the door.

Naruto was shocked, she trusted him enough to look after her daughter when she was gone "Y-you want me to look after Grace? Don't you have any siblings or someone to look after her?"

"I- no, I don't and right now you're the only one she trusts enough." Hana hesitated for some reason and it didn't go unnoticed by Naruto but he let it go, "I'm confident that you can take care of her and keep you safe." the purple haired woman looked at Naruto with a content smile and tears glittering in the corner of her eyes.

"Alright, I'll do it." the blond said with an iron resolve.

"Thank you, _sochi_." Hana said.

Naruto adjust _Nejibana_ on his back and picked up his bag, "I better get going, I'll miss my train to Magnolia town." he was about to leave when Hana pulled him into a hug; he didn't know what to do for a moment, before hugging back.

"Good bye." she whispered when she let go.

Naruto shook his head, "No, it's see you later." and with that he walked out the front door and headed towards the Hargeon train station.

Hana stared at the roof of her living room, "See you later? Sounds good."

.oOo.

~Hargeon Train Station~

Naruto sat on a bench waiting for his train to pull into the platform. _Nejibana_ was leaned up against the wall beside him. The blond didn't like the thought of travelling by train, it just didn't feel natural, and he felt nauseous at the thought of it. He was broken out his train of thought **(Pun not intended)** by the strong smell of iron and reptiles. Another Dragon slayer.

He looked up and saw a boy maybe a year or two younger than him was standing on the platform a few feet away from him with his arms crossed; the boy's hair was long and dark black, he wore a black tunic, grey trousers and sandals. Judging by the smell of iron, he must've been the kid of Metallicana's that Grandeeney had told him and Oceanus about.

It suddenly dawned on Naruto that if he was here then it must've meant that all the other dragons have disappeared too.

The train pulled up to the platform and everyone started to board, including the black haired boy. Naruto decided to enter the same car as him. He watched as the kid sat down and went in after him.

"Mind if I sit here?" Naruto asked.

The black haired boy sat looked at him with a slight glare and nodded before going back to looking out the window.

The two sat in silence for about thirty minutes, it made Naruto wonder if the other boy had realised that he was with another Dragon Slayer. With a sigh he just decided to go for it.

"You're a Dragon Slayer, aren't you?" Naruto asked making the black haired boy's gaze shot to him, "Metallicana's kid?"

The boy's eyes narrowed suspiciously at the blond, "How do you know that?" he asked.

Naruto laughed at him, "I'm surprised you didn't realise, I'm a Dragon Slayer too." he replied.

The boy's eyes widened in shock, "What? There is no way you can be a Dragon Slayer!" he exclaimed making Naruto laugh harder, "What are you laughing at!"

"You, of course." Naruto said, "I am A Dragon Slayer, son of Oceanus the water Dragon to exact, how else would I know."

"I still don't believe you." the boy said stubbornly, folding his arms across his chest.

Shaking his head Naruto sighed, "Believe what you want, it doesn't change the facts. Oh I'm Naruto Gurgite, by the way."

"Gajeel Redfox." the boy, Gajeel, grunted.

The conversation died down again, this time until the train started slowing down for its stop in Magnolia town.

"Well this is my stop, good meeting ya' Gajeel." Naruto said, picking up his bag and _Nejibana_ then putting them on his back, "I'm going to join the guild Fairy Tail, if you want to join me." he offered.

Gajeel snorted, "No thanks, I'm not interested in joining a guild, too many rules for my liking."

Naruto shrugged, "Your loss, my friend." he said, "I'll see you later and maybe we can have a fight too."

The last comment made Gajeel grin, "Sounds good me." the two bumped fists then as the train doors opened Naruto jumped out with one last wave good bye and headed off to Fairy Tail.

.oOo.

~Fairy Tail guild hall~

The many members of the Fairy Tail guild all laughed and drank to their content. It was a fairly normal day for them; Makao and Wakaba were drinking, Levi, Cana, Lisanna and Elfman watched as Mirajane and Erza argued... again, though Lisanna kept sneaking a few glances at Natsu. Said boy and Gray were fighting over something trivial again.

Both Gildarts and Makarov sat at the bar enjoying the sight of the guild mates enjoying themselves. The old master decided to bring up something he had been pondering since he arrived at the guild with Natsu the previous day,

"Gildarts, when you brought up the other Dragon Slayer, Naruto, you saw that everyone was surprised right?" Gildarts nodded, wondering where Makarov was going with this,

"Yeah, it was understandable, I mean, knowing one Dragon Slaying is surprising enough but two." the orange haired man shook his head.

"Well, did it seem to you that Erza wasn't very surprised?" Makarov asked causing Gildarts to sigh.

"I know she wasn't, she's met the boy before." Makarov looked shocked for a second then he turned and looked at said redhead with the different coloured eyes; he had a hunch,

"Tell me, what colour of eyes does this boy have?" the old master asked.

Gildarts raised an eyebrow at the question, "Blue, why?"

Makarov started to piece things together, "Do you know how Erza got that blue eye of hers'?" he asked cautiously, well aware he may be prying into something extremely private and personal.

The Crash magic user's expression was serious, little Erza had told him this in extreme confidence, "Yes, I do, but I cannot tell you, Master." Gildarts explained, "She told me in confidence and I won't anything other than that it does have something to do with Naruto."

Makarov nodded respecting the wishes of his children.

Not five minutes passed when the guild doors opened, making everyone inside stop and look at who it was, except Natsu and Gray of course, when a young blond haired boy walked in; he wore an orange and black coat **(Like he wears in Shippuden)** that was unzipped showing a black button down shirt, a pair of light blue trousers and combat boots. He had three whisker like marks on each cheek of his smiling face but the odd thing about him was that one eye was a deep royal blue but the other eye was slitted amber and almost didn't look human. He had a bag on one shoulder and some kind of trident like weapon on the other.

Erza looked at the boy in shock as he walked into the guild casually, tears welling up in her eyes. He was here at last. Gildarts just grinned, recognising the boy almost instantly. Makarov looked at the boy curiously; the magical power coming from the boy was incredible for someone his age. Mira eyed the boy like a kind of meat, whether she wanted to castrate him or not remained to be seen.

The blond stopped in the middle of the hall, seemingly oblivious to all the whispers now being shared around the hall.

"I was wondering if you could help a guy out," he said, "I'm looking for three people; the first is one Makarov Dryer as I'd like to ask him if I can join his wonderful guild, the second is Gildarts Clive because I want to kick his ass into next week," the last comment got everyone staring at him like he was insane and got Gildarts laughing,

"And finally I'm looking for a girl by the name of Erza Scarlet, because I want to see how she's doing and well, I'd like to give her a hug."

One thought passed though every single Fairy Tail mage, _'He's got a death wish.'_ nobody hugged Erza Scarlet, the last person to try got both their arms fractured and three broken ribs. The thought was even crazier than someone managing to beat Gildarts in a fight.

Much to everyone's shock, Erza started to approach the poor boy, with a look that most people knew too well, but once again they were all shocked; as just a few a steps away from the blond, she launched herself at him and captured him in a bone crunching hug, sobbing loudly into his chest.

"EHHH!" everyone exclaimed, the Erza Scarlet was crying and not silently where no one was around, but loudly for all to hear in the presence of at least eighty people.

"Who is he?" Makao whispered to Wakaba, "He got Erza crying just by showing up. Normally you couldn't get her to cry if you cut off her hand and dipped it in alcohol." the brown haired man just nodded in agreement.

"You're here, you're really here." Erza said into Naruto's chest.

The blond hugged her back, stroking her long red hair, "Course I am, I did promise remember?" he said.

Naruto managed to pry the girl off of him and look her in the eyes with a smile, "So, how's it been treating you?" he asked.

Erza wiped the tears from her eyes, "G-good. I see you got a new one." she replied still sobbing slightly.

Naruto winked at her, closing his left eye leaving his amber one open, "Yup, you like it?" Erza giggled slightly and nodded.

For most of the guild it was a heart warming, if not slightly scary sight, seeing the two who were apparently close seeing each other again and Erza giggling. But an audible growling noise was heard from the back of the hall were Mira was standing, a black aura surrounding her and knifes appearing out of nowhere in her hands... she wanted to castrate him.

Natsu looked at the blond curiously, something about him was familiar, but he couldn't put his finger on it, he felt like her knew him... it was so confusing! The blond smelt like salt water, rain and reptiles... who was he?

Makarov got up and walked up to the boy, smiling welcomingly, with a grinning Gildarts behind him, "I hear you were looking for us?" he asked.

The blond looked away from Erza still smiling happily, "Yes, you must be Master Makarov, I'm Naruto Gurgite, and you..." he finished glaring at Gildarts confusing the man,

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME YOU WERE THE STRONGEST MAGE IN FAIRY TAIL!" he yelled, jumping up and sending a water covered fist at the S-Ranked mage which he blocked rather easily.

"I didn't think was important at the time." Gildarts replied shrugging.

The master cleared his throat to get their attention, "Well Naruto, do you want to join Fairy Tail?" receiving an eager nod, he continued, "You do realise that we are a family here and treat each other as such?"

Naruto's expression turned serious almost instantly, "Yes, I do and I will do everything I can to protect my family even if it costs my life." his eyes shown with determination.

Makarov laughed heartily, "Good answer boy but I have one last question for you." he said, "Do you have a habit for destruction?"

Naruto scratched the back of his head, "Well, I destroyed a bank hall taking down some robbers." he glanced at Gildarts, "You know all about that, I guessing." before the master could respond they were interrupted by a loud yell of 'Fight me!'

Turning round, Naruto saw a pink haired boy, about ten years old, charging at him with fire encased fists. The blond grinned; this must've been Igneel's kid, Natsu.

"Sure thing, kid." with a single movement, Naruto stepped out of the way of the boy then punched him in the face sending him flying.

Makarov and Gildarts laughed again while Erza shook her head, embarrassed by the rose haired Dragon Slayer. "It seems that Natsu has taken a liking to you Naruto." chuckled Makarov.

The blond mage sweat dropped, "It seems that way but I kinda expected that from Igneel's kid, a hothead." Makarov and Gildarts raised their eyebrows at the boy's comment.

"How did you know that?" asked Gildarts curious, he was sure no one mentioned about Natsu being a Dragon Slayer.

Naruto laughed, "Dragon Slayers almost always know when they are in the presence of another Dragon Slayer. They all smell like their element and Reptiles, you see." Naruto explained, "For example, Natsu smells like fire and sulphur and I would smell like rain and sea water."

They nodded their heads in understanding. It made sense.

"Well then, Naruto I'd like to welcome to Fairy Tail." Master Makarov stated proudly, causing Naruto to grin and all the other guild members to burst out in cheers.

Up on one of the support beams of the hall, Laxus Dryer looked down of the newest member of Fairy Tail with an impassive looked, he snorted and went back to listening to his music, "He's weak, just like the rest of them."

He was going to inherit the guild from the old man and when he did all the weaklings would be removed. Fairy Tail would be the strongest guild in Fiore bar none, he would make sure of that.

Naruto was happy, very happy; he'd been reunited with Erza again, as it seemed she'd kept her promise to become strong if the grip she kept on his arm was any indication, and had been accepted into the Fairy Tail guild. When it came to getting his mark, he picked an orange one for the inside of his right fore arm.

Now everyone was partying in honour of their family member. It seemed that they'd use just about any excuse to throw a party, not that Naruto was complaining. Erza was dragging him round table to table introducing him to the other members of the guild but he noticed that she was avoiding the ivory haired girl with the evil black aura floating around her and knives in her hands. Naruto was about to point this out but he realised that her glare was aimed at him so he shut up.

Gildarts watched as Naruto was pulled around the tables by Erza with an amused smirk on his face, those two would make quite the pair when they were older. Remembering when what Naruto said earlier and decided to take him up on his request.

"Yo, Naruto, how 'bout a spar." the Crash magic user called out to the blond. Everyone froze on the spot.

"Did I just hear correctly? Gildarts just offered to spar with the newbie?" Cana muttered disbelievingly.

"I think he did, I don't really believe it either." replied Elfman.

Naruto grinned and broke out of Erza's iron grip, "Sure! I'll kick your ass!" he exclaimed, the blond turned back to the surprised redhead, "This won't take long." he said patting her on the shoulder.

Makarov sighed, he guessed that Naruto would challenge Gildarts but not the other way around and with the orange haired man's magic, it wouldn't be pretty, "Alright you two, take it out back, I'd rather not have the guild hall destroyed by your 'spar'."

They nodded in understanding then headed out to the back of the guild while rest of the guild got over their shock and followed them, almost eager to see the newbie get beaten by the giant that was Gildarts Clive.

Erza looked at Naruto with a worried expression, she had no doubt that he was strong, she'd seen his power first hand back at _that tower_ but there was no way he could stand up to Gildarts, it just wasn't possible. The redhead's thoughts were interrupted by a cold laugh,

"Aww, look at you all worried about your little boyfriend." it was Mirajane.

Erza didn't turn to look at her as her face turned the same colour as her hair, "You're just jealous that he likes me, it's understandable."

"Why you little...!" Mira was about to hit Erza when she was stopped by Cana holding up a bag with a smile,

"You gonna bet on the fight?" she asked.

Mira looked at her for a moment then smirked, "Sure, I bet 60 jewels that Gildarts wipes him out in a single blow." she then handed over said amount of jewels then sneered at Erza, "Who else you got betting?"

Cana looked thoughtful for a moment, "Well, Macao and Wakaba bet that Naruto will get a hit on Gildarts but will be beaten easily, Levi and Gray say that Gildarts will win finally Elfman and Lisanna bet that Naruto will do well but Gildarts will eventually beat him."

Erza's fists clenched angrily; it upset her that they all had so little faith in Naruto. She would admit that it was understandable for them to think this but they didn't see Naruto fight a year ago were he took down a small army of guards and mages mainly by himself and risk his life to protect Grandpa Rob and her, two people he didn't even know.

"I bet 70 jewels that Naruto will knock Gildarts over." she said simply, doing her best to hide her anger.

Both Mira and Cana looked at her like she was insane, but the latter just shrugged accepting the money without question.

Naruto and Gildarts stared each other down, each with a huge grin on their faces, "Be warned Naruto, I won't be holding back." Gildarts said to the blond.

"I wouldn't forgive you if you did." Naruto retorted.

Makarov stood between them and cleared his throat getting their attention, "Alright you two, I want to see a fair fight, alright? Begin!"

With the command, Naruto dropped his bag and drew _Nejibana_ then charged at the older mage. Gildarts held up his hand ready to block but was caught off guard when at the last second Naruto disappeared in a splash of water and reappeared behind him, sending a wave of pressured water at the orange haired mage. Gildarts managed to break apart the water with his disassembly magic, creating a small explosion.

When the smoke cleared Naruto stood in an offensive position ready to strike again, water pouring off of _Nejibana_ but instead he concentrated his magic and muttered, "_Suiro no Uroko_ (Water Dragon's Scales)" water coated his body forming dark blue scales.

Gildarts looked interested by this ability, he was about ask about it but Naruto beat him to it, "Just a little bit of extra protection."

Naruto charged for another attack, sending another wave of water at the S-Class mage and once again Gildarts blocked it with his magic creating another explosion. The blond was sent flying of the blast but quickly recovered, doing a barrel roll and landing on his hands and knees,

He smirked at the older man, "Not bad old man, but you need to keep your guard up." Naruto pointed behind Gildarts.

Gildarts' eyes widened as he turned round to see a second Naruto appear then hit him cleanly in the chest with a sphere of water,

"_Mizu no atsuryoku-kyu! _(Water Pressure sphere)" he yelled as Gildarts gave a small grunt.

The clone behind him spun his _Nejibana_ and sent a _Rippuru Hakei _(Ripple wave) at the giant man who stumbled forward at the force of the offending attack.

The spectators looked on in shock and awe at the new kid; he just managed to fool Gildarts by making a clone and _hit_ him with two clean blows. TWO! It was something that most experienced mages couldn't manage.

"How do you like that one, old man?" Naruto asked with a smirk as his water clone melted away.

Gildarts let out a hearty laughed and replied, "It was good, but never let up and assault once you get and advantage, cause if you did keep going, you might've been able to knock me over." magical energy started rolling off of the large man in waves.

Naruto looked on with a slight look of fear at the shear amount of magic radiating off the man but he swallowed that fear as best he could and took a deep breath,

"_Suiryu no Hoko!_ (Water Dragon's Roar)" he yelled sending the giant blast of water at Gildarts but it was dispersed by the thick and powerful radiating off him.

By now the aura of magic that Gildarts was giving off had started raising stones into the air and cracking the ground beneath him. For Naruto the massive pressure was too much, to the point it made him collapse onto his hands and knees, sweat rolling down his face.

"This is where it ends." Gildarts said fiercely as he walked up to Naruto and punched him on the head knocking him down flat.

'_So this is the power of a true S-Ranked mage.' _Naruto thought, lying on the ground, barely conscious.

"The winner is Gildarts." Makarov announced. The outcome was not surprising in the least but seeing how well the Thirteen year old boy did against the strongest Mage in Fairy Tail was impressive, very impressive.

Erza ran over to Naruto and helped him up. "You idiot, you knew you couldn't beat him." she muttered at him.

Naruto laughed quietly, still not completely conscious yet, "Yeah, but I wanted to see how I stacked up to him." Erza shook her head at the boy; it made her wonder why she even liked him.

A slow clapping got the pairs attention, they looked up and saw Makarov clapping with a large smile on his moustached face, "Well done Naruto, you did very well; not many people can boast that they managed to land two consecutive blows on Gildarts."

The orange haired man nodded in agreement, "It's true, you did good."

Naruto grinned, slightly lopsidedly at the comment. He was definitely was going to enjoy it here at Fairy Tail.

_**And Scene**_

**Sorry for the long wait, I've had writers block and only in the last two days have I got my inspiration back, ya gotta love the Fairy Tail OST's. And before anyone asked, yes Naruto is getting his memories back, and yes some higher power is interfering. Also Grace will play a part in this. If you have any questions don't be afraid to review or PM me and ask me. anyways, until next time,**

**Ja Ne **


	7. Chapter 7

**Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto**

**Fairy Tail © Hiro Mashima**

_**Chapter Seven**_

Stood in front of the request board Naruto sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that day and it was only noon! He'd only been at Fairy Tail for about two days and he was still trying to find a job, though most everyone kept telling him at least get settled in first, even Erza told him to not be so hasty.

"I really don't think you should go out on a job so soon." A voice piped up from behind him. The blond turned around and saw a girl about the same age as him, she had long brown hair and wore a orange and yellow striped sundress, "I can tell you and Erza haven't seen each other in a long time, so why don't you catch up or something?" she suggested.

Naruto stared at her, trying to come up with a good answer, but couldn't think of anything. He realised that he really didn't know anything about the redhead at all, other than that she was his age, was his age, had his right eye and liked to wear armour. Finally he gave in to the brunettes request with a sigh, he really was doing that a lot today,

"Sure, I think I will, thanks..." he said breaking out into a small smile then realising he didn't know her name.

"Cana, Cana Alberona." Cana gave her name.

Naruto out right grinned this time, "Well, thanks Cana Cana Alberona." he waved as he walked past her leaving the girl shaking her head at his apparent idiocy.

Naruto walked into the middle of the guild hall and looked around him for Erza. He spotted the armoured redhead sitting at a table with another blue haired girl, Levi, if could remember correctly, eating some strawberry sponge cake.

'_Hmm, who've guest she had a sweet tooth?'_ the blond thought with a small shrug.

He walked up behind Erza with a friendly smile, "Yo, Erza, Levi!" he said, "Mind if I sit with you?"

Naruto never saw the vein throb just above the redhead's eye nor the slightly scared look on Levi's face so the poor boy didn't even expect the fist that was sent flying his way and by the time he did see it, he was already on the ground with a smoking grapefruit sized lump on his head.

"You've been here all morning and you only just decide to come over and talk to me just now?" Erza said, her still smoking fist shaking in frustration.

Levi sweat dropped at the sight, "Calm down, Erza-san, beating him up won't solve much." the blue haired girl put her hands on Erza's shoulders and brought her back to her original seat. A few minutes later Naruto got up and joined them at the table along with Cana, who subtly took the money that Levi, begrudgingly held out under the table.

"Oh Naruto, I wanted to ask you, how did you and Erza meet?" Levi asked the pair curiously. Both Erza and Naruto shared a nervous look at each other,

"Well, er, you see, about a year ago, just after I met old man Gildarts, I took a small job from the local news paper but came across Erza and a few others in a bit of a bind so I decided to help them out." he explained, quickly coming up with the best cover story he could think of, "After I helped them out, I found out Erza could do magic and we promised to met again at Fairy Tail someday."

Erza snorted, "We were in more than a bit of bother, and you took down a small army of mages just to get us to safety, so stop cutting yourself short." she said, eating a spoonful of her cake.

Cana and Levi gaped slightly, "Small army? What on earth did you do to have a small army after you, Erza?" Cana asked, slightly disbelieving, "and how did Naruto manage to take them down?"

The armoured girl ate another spoonful of cake, looking down at the table, "How I got into that mess isn't really something I want to talk about, at least not yet." Naruto glanced at Erza sadly, a look that didn't go unnoticed by the other two girls at the table, "As for how Naruto defeated them, that brings me to something I wanted to ask you myself, Naruto." Erza said looking at the blonde,

Naruto looked curiously at the red head, as did Cana and Levi, "What do you want to know?" the water Dragon Slayer asked.

"In your fight against Gildarts, why didn't you use that technique that you used against those mages when you helped me? _Suiro no Himitsu: Rabaiasan_ (Water Dragon's secret: Leviathan), wasn't it?" Erza asked curiously. Cana and Levi didn't know what the attack was but it sounded really powerful, "I'm pretty sure you could've beat Gildarts with it."

Naruto laughed, she certainly hit the nail on the head with that one, "Yup, I probably could've,"

Before Naruto could continue, Cana interrupted, "Whoa, hold up, you mean that Naruto was holding back against the old man?" Both Naruto and Erza nodded simultaneously. Levi just sat gaping at the blonde trying to fathom how strong the he must've been.

"Well as I was saying, I could've used but it wouldn't have done anything to him because the particular spell only works on those I truly consider my enemies and if I did manage to truly make Gildarts my enemy then that would mean that I would've betrayed the guild in a way, then again the old man could just break it with his Crash magic. Not to mention that it is highly destructive and most likely would destroy the guild." Naruto finished his explanation lightly.

'_Well that explains why only the guards and mages were hit by that monster and not the slave'_ Erza concluded mentally.

'_That's really impressive, I wander if I'll ever get to see him use it.' _Cana thought almost amazed at what the blonde Dragon Slayer had just told them.

'_Wow, it must've been tough learning a spell like that one, then again he was raised by a dragon, like Natsu, I wander if he knows anything like that._' Levi thought.

They were interrupted by a loud battle cry; Natsu had leaped into the air, both his fists flaming, as he aimed for both Naruto and Erza, apparently trying to take them both at once. Levi and Cana looked slight scared by the flaming boy heading in the direction of their table, hoping that Naruto and Erza didn't hurt too badly. Said pair just looked at Natsu, neither very surprised as one thing that they both learned rather quickly from the boy was that he would challenge anyone he deemed strong to a fight, or just to sneak attack them.

Both the red head and the blonde raised their fists, then punched the pinkette in the face stopping him dead in his tracks. Natsu let out a small groan as he fell to the floor with a loud 'thud'. Naruto and Erza resisted the urge to sigh at the pink haired Dragon Slayer. A cruel laugh caught the pair's attention; it was Mira, she was sitting cross legged on Wakaba's bowed back, obviously enjoying the sight of the pip-squeak getting pounded.

"Wow, that was _pathetic_!" she said mockingly. Both Lisanna and Elfman looked slightly upset at their elder sibling, with the former sparing few glances to the poor boy lying on the ground. Naruto, Erza, Levi, Cana and Gray all sent Mira a death glare; that was just plain cruel.

Natsu picked himself off of the ground with a furious expression spread across his face as he glared at Naruto, Erza and Mira. "I'll become stronger and beat you all!" he exclaim, sparks of fire spitting from his mouth. The blond Dragon Slayer grinned at the boy,

"You do that kid, become strong and make your dad proud." he said, almost like he was issuing a challenge to the younger boy, "'cause if you don't I'll have to make you stronger myself and trust me you won't like what I'll do to you."

Erza looked at the now determined boy with an evil stare, "And you know I'll be right behind him." the young mage gulped but the gleam in his eyes shown brighter that before.

"You better believe it! I'll be stronger than all of you put together, that includes you old man!" Natsu pointed to Gildarts who was watching with interest and with that the young boy ran out of the guild, intent on training until he dropped.

Naruto leaned back into his chair and stretched contently before saying, "He probably shouldn't have done that."

"Done what?" Levi asked curiously.

Naruto smiled softly, Natsu kinda reminded him of himself for some reason, but he shook the thought out of his head, "Run outside, it's about to rain, pretty heavily too." before anyone could ask what he meant a flash of lightning arced across the sky.

"Why did you do that to the brat?" Mira sneered, feeling pretty upset at the lost chance to tease the brat, "You know he'll never be as strong as any of us, hell I bet even these two idiots are strong than the brat," she pointed to Macao and Wakaba, the latter still serving as her seat, " Raised by a dragon or not."

Erza glared at the ivory haired teen, "We did not, we gave him a goal and offered to help him achieve it!" Mira hopped off of Wakaba's back finally letting the poor man sit up straight. The two girls glared at each other to the point that you could literally see sparks flying at each other.

Makarov jumped off his position of the bar and landed in front of the blond mage, "That was a good thing you did there Naruto." the old man said.

Naruto looked at the guild master with a raised eyebrow, "What do you mean Gramps?" he asked curiously, "I just gave the kid a nudge in the right direction, that's all."

The old guild master nodded wisely, "That's exactly what I'm talking about, you gave the boy a goal to aim for and achieve, I'm happy to know that you and Erza will be looking out for him." Makarov grinned.

Naruto chuckled and scratched the back of his head, "It was nothing, the kid needs a little company, after all the only person to really spend time with him is Gray and they spend most of their time fighting."

Once again Makarov nodded knowingly, feeling happy that both Naruto and Natsu would make great additions to the family that was Fairy Tail. No one really noticed Lisanna grab an umbrella and sneak out to go see the pink haired dragon slayer.

.oOo.

~Months later, Fairy Tail guild, X778~

It was January, Naruto had been part of the Fairy Tail guild for about six months and honestly they were some of the happiest he could remember. He grew closer to Erza, they did plenty of missions together and he would never admit it out loud be had formed a crush on the red head but remained oblivious to the fact she felt the same about him. This of course provided much amusement for the rest of the guild, even Mira, who nearly drove the two mages spare with her comments.

Over this time he'd still been having weird dreams of running down a sewer with people calling out his name, he didn't know why but he felt like he knew these people but could remember from where and only recently, they'd been telling him to 'remember', he still didn't know what to make of these dreams, he'd even brought it up with the master but the old man didn't know what to think either. It was quite worrying for the blond Dragon Slayer

After about two months they decided to from a team together, though they still hadn't decided on a team name yet. Of course they did do missions separately, like Naruto would do missions with Gildarts, much to everyone's surprise, Natsu and occasionally Levi and Cana. Erza would also do missions with Gray and Natsu.

However Naruto and Erza weren't the only ones growing close together; as it happened Natsu and Lisanna seemed to be quickly becoming good friends, much Mira's irritation. The two would spend time out in a hut they had out in the nearby forest. Naruto and Erza would spend time out in said forest watching over them along with an angry Mira who would rant about how Natsu was polluting her baby sister's mind.

Naruto had kept to his promise to Grace and Hana and visited them every weekend to spend time with them, at first he didn't really say where he was going every until Erza demanded that he take her along with him. Of course both Grace and Hana were thrilled to meet one of Naruto's new guild mates. After that he finally decided to give up the ghost and tell the guild about his _imouto_ and _okaa-chan_.

Right now, Naruto and Erza were on their way to a nearby village, they said that a large monster had been attacking during the night and no one could see it, the only way that they knew how big the thing was that it left massive footprints.

"So what do you make of this 'invisible' monster?" Naruto asked the red head walking beside him as he tapped _Nejibana _off of his shoulder.

Erza folded her arms over her armoured chest and rubbed her chin, "I'm not too sure, I think that the hardest part will be locating it and keeping it in sight but after that it shouldn't be too hard." she replied thoughtfully.

Naruto nodded, "Well one way or another it should be interesting." he suddenly realised something, "Hey, why aren't we travelling by cart?"

Erza didn't look at him instead kept facing straight ahead, "Your motion sickness has been getting worse and I didn't want to have to burn another cart because of you."

The blond pouted feeling rather put out, "I said I was sorry, geez, but thanks."

He didn't see it but a light blush dusted the red head's checks as a small smile tugged on her lips.

After a few more hours of walking and light chat, the team of two finally arrived in the town of Lumion, it wasn't large like Magnolia or Hargeon but it was big enough. The town hall was located in the centre of the town and that was where they needed to go to inform the mayor, the man who requested the job. The mayor was definitely an elderly man of high class despite the small town; he wore a black top hat and a fine black tuxedo.

"Hello sir, we're the mages from Fairy Tail here to take out the beast that has been causing you trouble." Erza greeted the mayor.

The old man eyed them, "Are you sure you are up to this?" he asked "You don't look much older than fourteen?" Erza was about to retort when Naruto laid a hand on her shoulder with a confident smile.

"Sir, you have a dragon slayer and the fastest re-quip mage in all of Fiore, you have nothing to worry about." Naruto said with a wide grin as he pointed to himself and Erza proudly.

The mayor chortled heartily, "Ah very good, very good, if you're confident enough I'll leave you to it. But please remember that this monster is not visible to the naked eye."

Naruto and Erza shared a glance and smiled widely to each other before turning back to the elderly mayor, the blond mage closed his one blue eye leaving his artificial dragon's eye visible, Erza did the same showing her one blue eye.

"Don't worry about that, we aren't going unprepared trust us." Erza said.

With another hearty laugh the mayor left them too their job of defeating the beast.

.oOo.

Hours more past as Naruto and Erza sat themselves on the roof of the town hall. It was the tallest building in Lumion and was dead in the centre so it would give them a full view of the town so the moment the 'invisible' monster attacked they'd know about it right away. But so far there was no sign of the monster and it was nearing midnight. It was rather peaceful for them as they looked over the lights of the town.

Naruto let out a loud yawn and leaned back into one of the many chimneys of the large hall, Erza herself was having hard time staying awake. As strong as they were walking for several hours straight and next to no rest would have an effect on most people, mages or not.

"Naruto, I think it best if we got some rest while we wait, this thing doesn't seem to be showing up and there is no point trying to fight it while we are exhausted." Erza spoke up.

Naruto rubbed his blue eye and nodded, "Good point, let's hope this thing doesn't attack for a while." he replied.

To his surprise Erza got up from her seat position not too far from him and walked over then sat down beside him. After that she did the must un-Erza-ish this possible, in most people's eyes, she re-quipped her armour chest plate and leaned into his side. Naruto of course didn't really know how to react to that shown by the fact that his face was now a similar colour to her hair.

"E-Erza, what are you doing?" he asked nervously.

"Getting comfortable so I can sleep, is there a problem?" she responded quietly. Unknown to the blond her own face was flushed bright red.

"N-no, not a problem." Naruto stuttered. Decided to just go with it he relaxed and rested his head on top of hers. Her hair smelt beautiful, like fresh strawberries and a hint of peppermint.

'_She really loves her strawberries.'_ with that thought the blond drifted off into the land of Morpheus.

_~Dreamscape~_

_Naruto looked around and found himself in a massive chamber, like same one he'd always arrive in his previous dreams. He looked around and saw the massive iron bars that held some kind of creature behind them. The Dragon Slayer looked up at the bars and spotted a small piece of paper wrapped around the two centre bars, it read '_Seal'_. Naruto wondered how a small piece of paper could keep anything back._

'_**Small it may be but it is of extremely high quality.'**__ a deep gravelly voice spoke, shocking the blond, the voice was similar to that of Oceanus but there was an undertone of malice and demonic power that the old water dragon never had._

"_Who are you? Tell me!" Naruto called out to the voice._

_The voice only chuckled, __**"I'm hurt kit, you don't remember you're dear friend?" **__crimson eyes appeared behind the bars, the eyes held a deep unquenchable thirst for blood but yet they held a familiarity as the gazed upon the blond mage._

"_What are you talking about; I've never met you in my life!" Naruto retorted coldly._

_The creature sighed, __**"It seems he was right and she really did seal away your true memories."**__ it muttered, now that threw Naruto for a loop, true memories? What 'true memories'? And who was this 'she'? _

"_Hold up here, what do you mean 'true memories'? And how do I stop these dreams?" Naruto demanded feeling his anger rising._

_The creature let out a booming laughter, __**"You will learn soon enough kit, now is not the time for now. As for the dreams, you cannot stop them, we are bound together, our very souls are tied together even beyond death, that was decided the moment I attack that pathetic village of yours." **_

_Naruto scowled, this thing was really getting on his nerves, "At least tell me who and what you are!"_

_As if on cue, the shadow lurking behind the giant iron bars lifted revealing a massive demonic fox; it's fur was an orange-red colour, nine long powerful tail swished around it almost lazily, it's claws were easily the length of a decent sized house and it's muzzle was pulled up into a twisted, snarling, grin._

"_**Well since you asked so politely," **__the fox said sarcastically, __**"I am the mighty demon lord, Kyuubi no Yoko."**_

_Before Naruto could respond the chamber around him started to fade into black, __**"It seems we are out of time, little kit but we will meet again."**__And with that everything went black._

_~Town of Lumion~_

Naruto groggily opened his eyes as the feeling of being shaken hit him. When everything finally came into focus he realised that Erza was calling his name and was only inches away from his face...

"Wake up you idiot!" Erza yelled at her sleeping team mate, "Come on, the beast is attacking the town!" finally Naruto woke up he stared at her his expression that of surprise, the red head realised how close she was to him and jumped almost instantly.

"Hurry the monster is attacking." she said looking away from him.

Naruto shook his head and looked over the edge of the hall at the buildings collapsing and the loud roars of the monster, the monster itself was about as big the two story houses in the town and looked a lot like a chameleon, so it explained why it was invisible. Naruto grinned as he saw the large monster charging around the town. When he Oceanus he really needed to thank him for the Dragon's eye he gave him.

"I see it." he said as he grabbed _Nejibana_ from beside him.

"I can only see a slight out line." Erza said simply as she re-quipped into her Heaven Wheel armour. It turned out that when Rob transferred Naruto's eye to her he planted some magic into the eye making it immune to other eye magic and illusions.

"Good enough for me." Naruto grinned, he slammed the spear end of his weapon into the roof of the town hall and water started to pour out of either end, "_Suiro no Uroko! _(Water Dragon's scales)" water wrapped itself around his body and formed deep blue scale like armour around his body. It wasn't as strong as any of Erza's armour but it got the job done.

The pair leaped off of the hall's roof and ran at the chameleon monster.

"_Mizu no atsuryoku-kyu shouto! _(Water pressure sphere shot)" Naruto yelled sending the pressurised ball of water at the chameleon but it just dispersed off the lizards thick hide. The monster didn't even seem affected by the spell, instead it focused its attention on to them and charged, its large horn aimed for the blond.

Erza, with help of her Heaven Wheel armour flew over head and summoned her many swords, "_Sakururen Sodo! _(Circle Sword)" she called as roughly twenty steel blades imbedded themselves into the spine of the monster. Thankfully the swords were sharp enough to piece the monsters hide causing it to let out a defining roar of pain.

The over sized lizard thrashed around trying to rid itself of the blades. "Naruto! Now!" Erza yelled at her blond companion. Naruto nodded and held his palm up to the beast,

"_Suiro no Yari! _(Water Dragon's Spear)" he called and a spear of water shot out of his palm and right through the roof of the chameleon's mouth. It reared up onto its hind legs, wobbled forward a few steps before collapsing on to the ground... and on to Naruto.

"Oh shi..." the blond shouted as the beast fell on to him.

"NARUTO!" Erza called out panicked, she knew it would take more than that to beat Naruto but still she couldn't help but worry about her crush.

After a few seconds of worrying, Erza noticed the monster slowly starting lifted off the ground. Re-quipping back into her normal armour she ran over to the fallen beast and helped lift it up. With a loud grunt the creature was lifted off Naruto and flung down the street. Naruto stood slightly out of breath, his blue scales were dripping from his body and _Nejibana _was lodged into the ground next to him.

"Phew, that thing weighs a ton; it really needs to lay off the burgers." Naruto joked happily.

Erza just smiled and shook her head at the blond mage, he really was an idiot sometimes but he was her idiot, whether he knew it or not and she wouldn't have it any other way.

"Come on, let's get this thing back, collect our pay and head on home." He said.

.oOo.

After they collected their rather hefty pay the next morning, Naruto and Erza decided it would be quicker to take a cart back to the guild in Magnolia. So to avoid any... accidents, the re-quip mage knocked the Dragon Slayer unconscious and spent the entire trip lying on Erza's lap.

They arrived back at the guild and reported the mission complete to the Makarov. After that Erza went off to boast to Mira or stop Natsu and Gray from arguing, Naruto wasn't too sure and right now, he needed to speak to the master.

"Gramps, I need to talk to you about something." Naruto said quietly, not wanting to gather any attention. Makarov hearing the serious tone in Naruto's voice, nodded and followed him out the back of the guild.

"What do you need to talk about Naruto?" Makarov asked his surrogate child.

Naruto stared at the master with a serious expression, "What do you know about demons?"

**And Scene**

**Well I gotta apologise for the lack of update but, I've been busy and the writer's block struck again so sorry ^^". I wanted to name the team Naruto and Erza formed but I could think of anything suitable, at first I thought of Blue Sunset but it did fit really so I'll see if I can come up with anything. **

**I wanna to people, I really do appreciate the many reviews you guys have given me, really, but please if you're gonna review at least say what you liked, what you didn't and anything else; it helps me with my writing and will help improve my story. So please at least say more than 'Good work' or 'keep it up' and if you have any questions, I WILL answer them.**

**I nearly have the first chapter of my promised stories done, it's called 'Naruto; the new Spirit' and it's a Naruto/Lucy story. When I upload that one, I'll work of the next one. **

**Anyways**

**Ja Ne **


	8. Chapter 8

**Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto**

**Fairy Tail © Hiro Mashima**

***PLEASE READ AUTHOR'S NOTE AT THE END PLEASE!*  
**

**Chapter Eight**

_~East Forest, Fiore, X780~_

"_Karyu no Hoko!_"

"_Umi no jiten_! (Ocean's rotation)"

The intense stream of fire struck a spiralling sphere of water and boiling hot steam erupted from the contact. As the flames dissipated and the smoke cleared to boys stood facing each other, one looking completely frustrated and the other grinning like the cat that caught the canary.

"Nice try Natsu!" the grinning boy called to the other, "You need to make your flames hotter if you want to bet my _Nejibana's_ water" he tapped the trident like weapon of his shoulder as he spoke.

Natsu growled at the Naruto, "Shut up! I'm making them as hot as I can!" he yelled back, "Besides your rotation spell isn't perfect either." the pinkette pointed the light burns on the blonde's arms.

Naruto glanced at the burns; his skin was an angry red, blisters dotted all over. The water Dragon Slayer just shrugged and blew a little water on the offending area of skin. "That's why we're here Natsu, you want to become strong, and you can do that by beating your weaknesses, which is water and I want to get stronger by creating new spells, _Umi no jiten_, isn't completed yet." it was true, he had first had the idea of this spell when he remembered a fight against a rather feminine looking boy with pale eyes and a headband with a weird insignia that looked almost like a leaf who used a similar technique.

Funny thing is, Naruto was pretty sure he'd never met the boy before in his life.

Natsu pouted, "How come you aren't working to beat your weakness?"

"Because my elements weakness is lightning and I already know how to beat that, quite simple really." Naruto explained.

"I thought I'd find you two here." a new voice said. The pair of Dragon Slayers looked over seeing Erza walking into the clearing, smiling lightly at them.

"Yo, Erza-chan!" Naruto greeted the redhead with a wave. Natsu however, just let out a squeal and jumped behind Naruto; if Erza was here during training, and was smiling, it meant only one thing as he and Grey had learned long ago... pain and lots of it. Worst part about it, Naruto, probably the only person in the guild able to stand against Erza and survive, backed her torture training one hundred percent by saying, _"It'll toughen ya, if you can survive this, you'll survive anything."_ it almost made the pink haired boy cry.

"Naruto, master sent me to find you, he said he needed a word with both of us." Erza said to the blonde before turning her attention to Natsu who was peeking out from behind his human shield, "Natsu, you should know that it's three thirty."

The fire Dragon Slayer's eyes widened in horror, "Ahh! Crap! I'm gonna be late and Lisanna is gonna kill me!" seconds later he took off in a trail of dust and panicked yells.

Naruto chuckled at the sight, "Those two, despite their age, really do act like a married couple." he strapped _Nejibana_ to his back and walked over to Erza.

"Yeah, they do and ever since they hatched Happy, they've been acting like parents to some extent as well." Erza giggled lightly, "Though I don't really think that Natsu really realised what he got himself into when he agreed to, letting Lisanna be his wife when they were older."

Naruto nodded, smiling at the thought, "No, I don't think he did, but it was hilarious when he let it slip in front of Mira, she went on a war path, Natsu hasn't been able to look poor Macao or Wakaba in the eye after what Mira did to them." he grinned, said incident had only happened about a year and a half ago, just a few weeks after the hatching of Happy the talking cat, but the memory was still clear, like it had only happened yesterday.

As the duo walked through the forest towards the guild, Naruto decided to break the silence that had fallen between them, "So, what did the old man want to talk to us about anyway?" he asked curiously.

Erza shrugged, "Not sure, he just said that it was very important and that it involved both of us." she too was curious, Master was very serious when he gave her the request.

Naruto just 'hmm-ed' in response, thinking of what the old man could want. The blonde remembered when he had asked the Master about demons two years ago after the dream he had when out on the mission to Lumion with Erza.

_*Flashback*_

"_What do you know about demons?"_

_Makarov paused for a moment, "I know about Zeref's demons and some of the old myths, why?"_

_Naruto hesitated for a moment, not really knowing how to put his next line, honestly, now that he thought about it, it seemed extremely stupid but he had to make sure,_

"_Well, while out on the mission Erza and I stayed the night and I had a very strange dream, I was standing a chamber that reminded me of a sewer. There were these giant gates held shut by a piece of paper that said '_seal' _on it." Naruto explained, "Behind the gates was a huge fox, it called itself the demon lord Kyuubi no Yoko, and an old friend of mine."_

_Makarov scratched his chin and hummed, "I recognise the name but I can't say I know anything about it though," he hummed thoughtfully again, "Is this the first time you've had this dream or a dream like this?" the Master asked._

_Naruto nodded, "Yeah, but I've also had dreams were I was running through sewers, I heard people whispering my name and telling me to remember."_

_The old guild master's brow creased, this was worrying, "Tell me Naruto did this 'Kyuubi no Yoko' say anything the stuck out or you found odd?"_

_Naruto snorted humourlessly, "Other than the fact I was talking to a self-proclaimed demon lord in the first place, then yeah, it did; it said that we were bound together, even beyond death, then it mentioned something about someone sealing away my true memories" _

_The blond stopped as a thought struck him suddenly, "Master, you don't think that this means that I'm a demon too?" he wasn't sure why but he felt fear at the thought of how his guild mates would react if he was a demon. The thought itself made a cold shiver climb up his spine._

_Makarov gave the blond a comforting smile, "I don't know Naruto, but know this; you will always have a place in Fairy Tail, no matter what." The statement almost brought tears to the blond dragons slayer's odd coloured eyes, "Now, if you have any more of these dreams please tell me, and if you can, try and pay attention to any details in your surroundings; the more we can learn the better." The old master finished._

_Naruto nodded, "Of course, thank you."_

_*Flashback end*_

Ever since then Naruto had been doing just that, the dreams came often, almost every other night, but he had not seen neither hair nor tail of the fox demon, it was like the thing had vanished, which it kinda had. Though recently, doors had started to appear along the long walls of the sewers, each with a name engraved onto each, they were faded and hard to make out. Slowly the blonde had been able to make out a few names; Sakura, Iruka and Tsunade. He had no idea who they were or what they meant but for some reason he felt a connection to the names, like they were old friends or something.

"We're here." Erza's voice broke him out of his revere as they walked into the guild hall, where all the members had started fighting again. Careful not to get pulled into the free for all, Naruto and Erza walked round the edge of the hall towards the Master's office in the back.

"Ah, Naruto, Erza, you're just in time." Makarov said cheerfully, sitting on top of his desk then suddenly growing very serious, "I have decided that I want you both to take an S-ranked trail in about a week's time."

They sat in silence as the Master's statement sunk in...

They blinked once.

Blinked twice.

Blinked Three time.

"Really! That's awesome!" Naruto exclaimed, "Thanks old man!" you could almost see the stars in the blonde's eyes at the thought of becoming an S-ranked mage.

Erza was just as happy as her companion, just less excitable than him, smiled at the little old man, "Thank you Master, but are you sure we're ready for it?" she asked.

Naruto slapped her confidently on the back, flinching slightly as his hand struck the cold hard metal of her armour plating, "Cheer up Erza-chan! We'll be S-ranked before you know! Besides do you think the old man would put us up to this if he wasn't sure we could do it?"

Makarov nodded, "Naruto is right; I have complete faith in you both and I think you'll both make it with little difficulty." he hopped off of his desk and walked over to the door, "By the way, for your trial, you'll be fighting Gildarts." The master stated, "He said that before he leaves for the hundred year mission, he wants to see you both as S-ranked mages."

Both teens froze in place; they would be fighting the strongest man in the guild bar the master. Sure, Naruto had fought him when he first joined and managed to land a hit on him but that was just a simple spar plus Gildarts wouldn't have been trying at all whereas for this, he would most likely destroy them. This wasn't good.

/~/~/~/~/

~East forest~

After their meeting with the Master, both Naruto and Erza decided to go and check up on Natsu and Lisanna in their little hut that they had in the forest. The pair thought it best if they keep their minds off of their upcoming trial so they settled in to a... discussion, that had been the annoyance of the Fairy Tail mages for the longest time,

"I'm telling you! It not a good name!"

"Oh, like you've come up with anything better."

"Actually, I have." Erza scoffed at her teammate's statement.

"Really? Name one good one." she challenged, "You know you can't"

Naruto scowled, "I'll give you three," he said, holding up three fingers, "One; Aqua Sword. Two; Blue Dawn and three; Faeries eyes." he folded down a finger for each name he counted off.

Erza huffed, crossing her arms over her chest plate, "I said give one good name, not three rubbish one and besides the 'Faeries Eyes was my idea in the first place."

"No it wasn't!" Naruto argued, looking like he'd been slapped in the face.

"Yes it was. I pitched it just last week."

A growl was heard from the bushes right beside the pair, a second later Mirajane jumped out of the bushes looking down right pissed off,

"Will you two just hurry up and pick a name already!" she yelled, "I could hear you two a mile away, bickering like an old married couple! If you don't shut the heck up or you'll let Lisanna and Natsu know that we're watching them!"

Naruto and Erza jumped at the sight of Mira suddenly appearing out of no where, "What the hell Mira, you scared us." Naruto yelled back at the ivory haired girl. They hadn't even realized that they were about to walk into the clearing that Natsu and Lisanna's 'home' was in.

Said girl smirked, "Maybe I wouldn't scare you so much if you would just shut up and grow a pair." Erza glared at her rival, "I'm a girl, not to mention five times stronger than you'll ever be."

Mira glared back, you could see the lightning shooting between their eyes, "You wish, I'm stronger then you'll ever be!"

"Natsu, did you hear something?" The trio of arguing mages froze hearing Lisanna's voice coming from the little hut in the middle of the clearing.

"Yeah, I did." Came Natsu's faint reply, "Want me to check it out?" At this point Naruto had grabbed the neck of the two girls out fits and pulled them into the bushes to try and hid from the pinkette.

Natsu emerged from the hut, Happy following closely behind him. The fire Dragon Slayer searched around the clearing for about five minutes before his nose started twitching like he'd caught a familiar scent. Naruto peaked up over the bush to see if the pinkette was gone only to come face to face with said boy. Both Dragon Slayers yelped and jumped back from each other startling both Erza and Mira.

"Ahh! What the hell!" Natsu yelled, "Naruto? What the hell are you doing here?"

Naruto shifted, feeling slightly uncomfortable, "Well, uh, you see…"

"We're here to see how you and Lisanna are doing." Erza interrupted the stuttering blonde, standing up acting like nothing had happened. Mira growled at her rival's bluntness.

Natsu blinked, taking in the sudden appearance of both Erza and Mira for a second, "Oh, okay!" he broke out into a wide grin; the pinkette turned around and called out, "Hey, Lisanna, Happy, guess who's here?"

"Who?" Lisanna emerged from the hut with a small blue cat sleeping in her arms, "Nee-san, Naruto, Erza-san, what are you doing here?" she exclaimed spotting the trio pulling themselves out of the bushes.

"Oh nothing much, just here to see how you and Natsu are going, you know." Naruto said laughing awkwardly.

Lisanna blinked, and broke out into a wide smile, "Really? That's nice of you to do." she said happily, "Why don't you guys come inside then." It wasn't a question. Lisanna motioned for the group to follow her in to the hut before going in herself with Natsu not far behind, following her almost like obedient dog.

Naruto turned to Mira with a deadpan expression, "Mira, you're little sister is probably the sweetest thing since sugar but I swear there are times she frightens me by how sweet she can be, hell if she can keep Natsu on such a short leash then she deserves to be feared." Mira smiled proudly,

"That's my _imouto_." she bragged, "Now if only she'd let me teach her _Satan Soul_ then she'd be just right" a twisted smile broke out on Mira's features as she planed how she could use Lisanna and her abilities for terro- err- amusement.

Naruto and Erza stared at Mira, a slight chill running down their spins at the sight of their friend/rival, "O-okay, well let's get going." Naruto said rather nervously.

When the three older mages made it to the hut, they found Lisanna and Natsu sitting down on the ground with Happy in between them, one looking expectant but with a deceptive smile on her face and the other looked intrigued as why the three of them were there as they never did this before.

"Please sit down." Lisanna chirped.

Almost instantly Naruto was on the ground, legs crossed and hands on his lap earning a loud snort of laughter from both Erza and Mira while Natsu looked confused by the blonde's sudden action. When all five of them, six including happy, where sitting comfortable Lisanna started talking,

"So, anything interesting going on?" she asked, simple enough.

Naruto and Erza shifted a little, wondering if they should tell them, Erza spoke first, "Well, there is something that we want to tell you-,"

"You're getting married!?" Lisanna blurted out. She soon realized what she had said and turned a bright shade of pink.

"WHAT! NO, WHO TOLD YOU THAT!" Naruto and Ezra shouted in unison, both a shade of red to match Erza's hair and enticing a giggle from the younger of the ivory sisters, a roar of laughter from the older and confusing poor Natsu even more.

"Sorry, it's just I think you two would make a very nice couple." Lisanna said, letting out another giggle, "Besides the whole guild is actually holding a pool on when you two will get together". Mira was currently rolling on the clutching her sides from the hilarity of it all.

Erza being the first to regain her composure ignored the younger girl's last comment and continued on, "No, that's not it; we wanted to tell you that the Master wants me and Naruto to take part in the S-ranked trial in a week's time."

You could hear a pin drop, Natsu, Lisanna and Mira looked at Erza and Naruto like they had both sprouted a second and third head...

"WHHAAAT!" Both Mira and Natsu roared in outrage at their new discovery.

"That's not fair; I'm easily stronger than Erza!" Mira ranted, "I should be the one taking the test with Naruto, not her!"

"Naruto, Fight me!" Natsu yelled, lighting his fists on fire and charging his fellow Dragon Slayer. Naruto just grinned, cocking his fist back then slamming it into the younger boy's abdomen, winding him and causing him to collapse in the process.

Erza and Lisanna just sat and watch their reactions with varying levels of amusement. Happy woke up, wondering about all the commotion, "Is it time to eat, 'cause I could do with some fish." he said, looking around at everyone in the hut.

"So, what is it that you have to do for the trial anyway?" Lisanna asked, "I remember when Laxus took the trial he came back covered in bandages and looked like he had been run over by a colony of Vulcan."

Naruto gulped, "Well, I don't know what Laxus had to do for his trial but I do know that we'll be fighting Gildarts for our trial."

Naruto's statement had an instantaneous, both Lisanna and Mira froze in place,

"I take back what I said, I know I'm strong but there's no way I'm fighting Gildarts to become S-ranked mage, it simple isn't worth the pain knowing I most likely won't pass anyways." Mira stated folding her arms across her chest. Lisanna nodded furiously in agreement. Natsu, if anything, seemed to get even more jealous of the pair; not only were they getting the chance to become some of the best in the guild, they got to fight the strongest in the guild to do it.

"Aaack! You guys are so lucky!" the Fire Dragon Slayer complained, "Why can't I become an S-ranked mage too?"

Mira grinned maliciously, "Because shrimp, you're not strong enough." she proved her point by planted her fist heavily on the top of the pinkette's head, knocking him to the ground, hard. Lisanna let out a worried cry for her 'husband' as both she and Happy ran, or flew in Happy's case, over to the younger teen,

"Natsu, are you alright?" Happy asked frantically, "Do you need some fish?" the talking blue cat started to wave his paws in front of Natsu's face to try and wake him up.

"I don't wanna go to school" was all Natsu could mumble.

When the teen had finally come round, they went back to the topic of Naruto and Erza's upcoming S-ranked trial, much to Mira and Natsu's ire.

"So have you thought of anything that might help you against Gildarts?" Lisanna asked curiously.

Both Naruto and Erza shook their heads, "No we haven't actually." Erza said, hanging her head slightly in shame.

"All we did was argue on our way here." Naruto continued, imitating the gesture.

Natsu tilted his head slightly in curiosity, "What about? How you were going to beat him?" he asked.

Mira snorted, "Hardly, they were arguing over a team name, again." Naruto and Erza's head dropped even further.

Lisanna sighed, sometimes she felt like she was the only mature one at the guild, "Again? Seriously, I thought two would have had this sorted out ages ago, and now with your trial only a week away you can't spend all your time fighting." she paused to take a breath, "Can you at least think of something that might help you against Gildarts?"

Naruto hummed for a second, "Well, I'd say our best bet is for one of us to keep him distracted while the other attacks him, I mean, the guy's attention problem, is to the point where he will walk through a wall and not even realise it." he explained, with Erza nodding in agreement.

"Definitely, but another problem is how are we going to actually cause damage to him." the red head spoke, folding her arms over her armoured chest, looking thoughtful.

Mira, who was bored to the point where she was now leaning against the hut wall looking out the door, decided to speak up, "I don't see much of a problem; Naruto is a Water Dragon Slayer and can use water magic and I'm pretty sure that Erza here has armour that lets her use lightning magic. So I say that you douse the old man in water then shock him, I highly doubt that any of Gildarts magic can stop him from being completely shocked."

The other four mages and cat stared at the take-over mage, wide eyed and mouth gaping, Mira looked slight creeped by their expressions,

"... What?"

"Mira, you may have just Erza and my asses." Naruto said, a tone of awe slipping into his voice, "I shall never doubt your intelligence again." Mira's eye twitched at the subtle dig at her IQ.

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it." the Ivory haired teen ground out.

Erza smirked, "What, you being smart?" she quipped.

A tick mark appeared below Mira's eye as she growled, "Me saving your ass, bitch!"

"What did you call me?"

"A bitch what ya' gonna do about it?"

"I'll shove a scimitar up your ass"

You could almost see the electricity sparking between the girls as the heated 'discussion' began to escalate.

"Come on you two," Naruto soothed, "As much as I'd like to see a cat fight between the two of you, we still have bigger fish that we need to fry, so if you don't mind."

Both girls audibly ground their teeth and turned away from each other with a huff. Natsu and Naruto let out a sigh of relief, last time those two fought, both Makao and Wakaba ended up in hospital for two weeks.

A loud groan sounded through the hut as Natsu's hunger made itself known, Erza and Lisanna sighed,

"I guess we better head back to the guild now." Erza said getting up and dusting herself off.

/~/~/~/~/

_~Fairy Tail Guild, 3 days later~_

Three days past since it had been announced that Erza and Naruto were to take the S-Ranked Trials and that they would be facing off against Gildarts to test their mettle. This had caused many reactions within the guild, some were, like Natsu, jealous of the pairs chance at becoming S-Ranked mages, others felt sorry for them; having to fight Gildarts of all people, and everyone else, including a few of the others, offered their help to Naruto and Erza with their training.

Naruto and Erza sat at a table in the guild with Levi, Cana and Gray. They were trying to come up with ways that they could distract Gildarts and cause him damage to defeat him.

"Naruto, how many of those water clones can you make?" Cana asked, taking a sip of her cola.

Naruto thought for a second, "I'm not sure of the total but I'd say around ten is what I could make without too much difficulty."

Cana nodded and turned to their red headed companion, "Erza, how strong is the lightning magic in your thunder lance?"

"It's pretty strong, not any were near Laxus' level but strong enough." Erza explained.

Cana drained the rest of her cola with a satisfied belch, "Well how 'bout, Naruto distracts the old man with his clones while Erza charges up her strongest lightning based attack, so that way when Erza is ready, Gildarts will be soaked and will practically fired by the lightning attack." she proposed.

Naruto and Erza thought about it but Gray spoke up pulling them from their train of thought, "That does sound like a good plan but, even if Pops would be able to sense the magic build up a mile away and would neutralise it with his Disassembly magic." Gray analysed calmly.

"Then what should they do?" Levi said sounding a little frustrated, "I mean, they're going up against Gildarts, the Ace of Fairy Tail, there must be something."

Naruto sighed and stood up, Erza doing the same, "It's alright guys, we have a rough idea on what we plan on doing, we just needed to know if there was anything you could think of that might help and I actually think you guys might be on to something."

Erza smiled at her friends, "Thank you for your help."

Then they both turned around to leave when the front door of the guild opened up to reveal an official looking man wearing a fine black pinstripe suit and sleek rectangular glasses and a black leather suitcase in hand. His brown hair was slicked back with a little too much oil. At his side was a young girl not older than nine or ten, she had long purple hair, held up in two long pig tail, her big brown eyes red and puffy, as if she had been crying.

Naruto recognised her almost instantly, "... Grace?"

The purple haired child race away from the official man with a loud cry, "Naruto-nii!" she tackled the blonde around the waist sobbing loudly.

By now the entire guild had silenced and looked on at the sight of Naruto holding the crying ten year old girl tightly.

"M-mommy, is g-gone, N-Naruto-nii!" Grace cried into Naruto's shirt, "T-the Doctor s-s-said that she had left, just like d-daddy."

Naruto pulled his _imouto_ closer to him, "its okay Grace, I'm here." he whispered to this little sister, trying to calm her down some. He looked towards the bespectacled man at the door hoping that he would start talking.

Makarov walked down from the bar, glancing at Naruto and the little girl who was obviously special to the blonde dragon Slayer, "May I ask what is going on?" he inquired to the man at the door, whom he suspected was a lawyer.

The lawyer let out a light cough and began to introduce himself, "I am Shimo Wasuke of the Kollin and Wasuke law firm." he said, "I am here to talk to one Gurgite Naruto about his inheritance from one Hana Imari, who has regrettably passed away two days ago."

Makarov nodded, "Does it need to be private of can it be public?" he asked the lawyer.

Shimo coughed again, "Well it is traditional that it be done in private."

Naruto stood up, carrying the still distraught Grace, "Okay, should we use your office Master?" with a nod from Makarov , the three of them including Grace went in to the Master's office in the back of the hall.

Mira walked up to Erza, "Who's the brat?" she asked none too sensitively.

Erza glared at her rival, "That's Naruto's little sister, Grace, her father died a little over three years ago and from what I've seen here, her mother had just died." Mira looked taken aback by not only Erza's harsh tone but what she had said as well.

"Wait, you said that she was Naruto's little sister, yet you kept referring to the parents as being Grace's only shouldn't they both have the same parents?" Levi asked, eavesdropping on the conversation.

Erza shook her head, "No, it's more and an adopted brother/sister kinda relationship, when Naruto was being trained by his father, the water dragon, he met Grace and helped her with some bullies then after that, she started viewing him as her older brother, even her parents started seeing him as a son after a while."

Levi nodded looking towards the door that leads to the Master's office.

/~/~/~/~/

_~meanwhile~_

Naruto sat down in front of the Master's desk, Grace curled up on his lap sniffing loudly, and he rubbed her back in a soothing manor. Shimo stood beside him while Master Makarov took his seat behind his desk.

Shimo coughed, pulling a roll of paper and unfurled it then began talking again, "I shall begin the reading Last Will and Testimony of Hana Cleo Imari; I, Hana Cleo Imari, being of sound mind and body, hereby declare this my Last Will and Testimony, all others before now being null and void. I first like the said that I am proud of both my daughter Grace and my unofficial son, Naruto. I know they will do great things in their life and make many people very happy." Naruto smiled sadly, his heart wrenching slightly at the thought of Hana's death.

"I leave all my worldly possessions to my daughter Grace and half my worth in Jewels to her as inheritance for when she becomes of age at fifteen. Next, to my Son in all but blood, I leave to the guardianship of my daughter Grace, a parental guardian if you are of age, I know you will look after her well and protect her with your life plus I leave you with half of my worth in Jewels to help you look after both yourself and Grace." This time, Naruto was floored, he knew and agreed to look after Grace, when Hana passed on but he never did expect this much; to be her new parent and half of the money from Hana's life insurance.

The blonde looked down at the ten year old on his lap with a smile, she had fallen asleep, _'I will take good care of her, no one will lay even a finger on her with the slightest bit of ill-intent, that's a promise of a life time.'_ Naruto thought to himself, hardening his new resolve.

"And finally" Shimo continued, "I wish, for Naruto and the current guild master of Fairy Tail help teach my daughter magic, Grace has shown signs the ability to use magic and I'd like her to learn how to use it, just like her big brother... That concludes the will reading of Hana Cleo Imari." Shimo, rolled up the paper and handed it to Naruto along with another sealed envelope,

"Hand that second envelope the manager or the local bank and they will help you sort everything out." Shimo said with a cough, "If there are no questions, I will take my leave." seeing that neither Naruto, nor Makarov had any questions, the lawyer gave them a polite bow and bid them farewell.

"So, Naruto, I take it that, you wish for young Grace here to be part of the guild?" Makarov asked the Water Dragon Slayer. Naruto nodded with a soft smile,

"Yeah, I do, right now, Grace needs a family and I plan on giving her the best damn family ever." he said with a fierce conviction, a determined fire now burned in the blonde's azure eyes.

"I agree, only the best." Makarov said, nodding, "Now, let's wake Grace up and introduce her to her new family!"

Naruto broke out into a grin, "Sure thing, gramps!"

**And scene**

**There you have it folks, an update! Sorry for the serious delay, but life for me just decided it would like to take a dive down the shitter and I couldn't find the time, nor felt like, updating. Moving on, I do plan on Updating '**_**Naruto, the New**_** Spirit' soon, when? I have no idea; I have no schedule to keep to. But know that I'll be ditching my work in my IT classes to get it done.**

**I'd like to get an idea out there; I promised I'd write a full length story for each Naruto/Fairy Tail Girl, now my idea is that, Instead of the typical scenario of 'Naruto goes to Fairy Tail world' how about, the Fairy Tail characters go to the Naruto World and work from there, it's something new and something that I have really seen much of in this particular archive. I'll have two polls on my profile, one for if I should do it or not, and what pairing you'd like to see. DON'T FORGET TO REVIEW!**

**Anyways, until next time!**

**Ja Ne! **


	9. Chapter 9

**Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto**

**Fairy Tail © Hiro Mashima**

* * *

_**Chapter Nine**_

_~Fairy Tail guild, Magnolia, X780~_

Grace Imari was content, it hadn't been long since the passing of her mom, something which still upset her terribly but thanks to her new 'father', who also happened to be her older brother figure, Naruto, things had been good. She had been very shy at first but over her four days at the Fairy Tail guild Naruto had made sure that she was always happy and even the other guild members helped as well... though one of them, Natsu something or other, had gotten a little too excitable and ended up having to be knocked unconscious by Erza.

To Grace, the older redhead had become something of a big sister to her, though she was important to Grace, Erza wasn't to the same level of importance as Naruto was, after all, she practically grew up with him. Erza did her best to look after Grace and even offered to teach her re-quip magic so she could officially be part of the guild.

Even though both Naruto and Erza were preparing for their S-ranked trial, whatever that was, they still made time for the ten year old and even let her watch them train a couple of time, with someone there beside her just encase things got a little out of hand of course. Grace was amazed by the things her brother and sister figures could do, they were absolutely amazing! She would watch with an awed expression as the older pair would trade blows.

Grace was enjoying her time at the guild, old man Makarov was funny, and he told her jokes and all kinds of stories. Everyone in the whole guild pitched in to make her feel more at home some of them even going as far as to put on small magic displays for her. Needless to say it didn't take long for them to break her out of her shell.

Currently Grace was sitting at a table with Naruto, Erza, Gray, Natsu and Cana. Both the blond and red head were fidgeting nervously in their seats and mumbling under their breath. The young purplette looked at her brother curiously, or was he her father now? She wondered,

"Ne, Naruto-nii." Grace asked, getting the Dragon Slayer's attention, "You know the way you're supposed to be my dad now, does that mean I'm meant to call you _tou-san_ now?" She cocked her to the side slightly, the epitome of curiosity.

Naruto laughed softly, "Well, I'm legally your dad, but you can call me _tou-san, nii-san _or whatever else you feel like." he seemed to relax slightly, thankful for the distraction from the impending trial with Erza against Gildarts.

Grace thought about it for a moment then nodded, "I'll just call you _nii-san_, and it would be really weird if I started calling you _tou-san_ all of a sudden." This got a snort of laughter out of Cana, Gray and Erza.

"I find it hard to believe anyone calling Naruto 'dad'." Gray said with a laugh.

Naruto huffed and folded his arms across his chest with a childish pout, "How is that so hard to believe?" he asked.

Cana laughed harder, "Well the fact that you're acting like a five year old would be part of the reason." she said barely holding back a grin.

The blonde's pout deepened as he let out another huff. Erza smiled at her teammate, "I say that Naruto would make a good dad." she defended him.

Naruto turned to the red head with a grin, "Thank you Erza-chan, at least one of you has some faith in Me." the stated, sticking his tongue out at the others immaturely.

Gray snickered, "That's because we don't have a crush on you like Erza does." he explained, getting another snort of laughter out of Cana.

Both Naruto and Erza turned a shade of red to rival that of the latter's hair colour.

"I do not!" Erza denied vehemently, glaring at the ice mage angrily. Gray shuddered under the glare but Cana seemed almost unaffected by the evil eyes and pressed the matter even more,

"Oh don't lie; you both have been dancing around each other since Naruto arrived here three years ago." she said in a matter of fact tone, "Hell most of the time you act like an old married couple, only with more energy. Now that Grace is here you've got yourselves a daughter now, literally for Naruto." she pointed to the young purple haired girl who was looking the others curious to what they were talk about.

At this point the blonde dragon slayer looked about ready to grab Grace and run from embarrassment and Erza seemed like she wanted nothing more than to just melt into the floor.

Gray smirked and turned to Naruto's new ward, "Say Grace, what do you think about your brother getting married to Erza, hm?" he asked, knowing full well that both the older mages would get back at him, but for now, he'd savour the moment while it lasted.

Without missing a the ten year old broke out into a massive grin and replied happily, "I think that it would be really great if they got married." she let out a peal of laughter at the thought.

Naruto looked almost betrayed by the little girl as the other two were almost slitting their sides trying to hold back their laughter. Erza cleared her throat, trying to at least regain some dignity, and decided to change the subject,

"So, Natsu, you've been quiet, what's wrong?" she asked the pinkette slightly worried, usually he'd be running around challenging people to fights and getting pummelled either by Gildarts or Mira but he'd been uncharacteristically silent.

Everyone else at the table stopped and looked over the young teen curiously suddenly realising that Natsu had been disturbingly quiet.

"Hm? Oh. Its nothing." the fire Dragon Slayer tried to dismiss the subject only to get glares from each person at the table, minus Grace, "Well it's just that both Naruto and Erza about to take their S-ranked trial and I was just thinking how long it'll be till I'm able to be able to take the Trial or if I'll even be able to at all." the boy's statement brought them back to why Naruto and Erza were so nervous in the first place.

Gray didn't seem to follow this though, "Whoa, whoa, hold up a second," he backtracked, "Since when does the matchstick think?" this got a chuckle out of the blonde and Cana, while Erza practically had to hold the thirteen year old back from attacking the laid back ice user.

Naruto was amused by the sight, especially since the lime light was now of him and erza, he glanced at Grace; she seemed even more amused than he was which was good to see. "Calm down you two," Naruto said, "We don't want to risk Erza-chan here losing her temper here do we? And if she does then Mira might join in as well." he knew that his words had an instant impact of the two as they froze in place the thought of _both_Erza and Mira getting upset at them was absolutely terrifying.

"That was cruel." Cana said, barely holding her own amusement at the situation "But effective, I like it." Naruto grinned and shrugged slightly; he was good like that.

"Natsu, don't worry about it, you still have a long way to go but I'm confident that you can make it to S-ranked soon enough and trust me, when you do you'll be freaking out." Naruto said, putting the confident onto the pinkette's shoulder.

Natsu broke out in a ridiculous grin as he thanked the older mage.

After about ten more minutes of idle chat Makarov approached the group with a look of pride and happiness, "Naruto, Erza." He said addressing them both, "it's time." they nodded and followed the master out of the guild, Grace walking beside Naruto and the others following not too far behind.

Hopefully, the next time they stepped inside the guild hall, Fairy Tail would be up two S-ranked mages.

* * *

_~Edge of East forest~_

Naruto and Erza stood in front of the Master as the rest of the guild gathered round them, since this wasn't the typical Trial that would be held on Tenryuujima in privet settings everyone gathered to wish the two mages luck, even Mira had shown up, but that was most likely to heckle them.

Makarov stood a head of the group with Grace standing beside him which was a funny sight due to the fact she was several inches taller than the aged master, he looked on to Naruto and Erza proud of them both, "Both of you know what you have to do?" they nodded, "Good, now, to get to Gildarts, you need to fallow this path and at the end he will be waiting for you but remember the journey to him will have a few challenges but it shouldn't be anything you two will have to worry about."

Naruto grinned, "Good, we wouldn't want this to be too easy." Erza nodded in agreement.

Grace jumped forward and hugged Naruto tightly, "Good luck Naruto-nii, beat 'em up alright." Naruto hugged the young girl back,

"Sure thing, we'll be back in a bit." He said patting her head.

"Naruto, Erza, your S-ranked trial begins… now!"

Like a shot both Naruto and Erza charged into the forest and disappeared from sight. Macao and Wakaba walked up to the master,

"Do you really think that they can do it?" Macao asked the older man.

Makarov nodded with conviction, "Yes, I do, those two are some of the best mages this guild has ever produced." He replied.

Wakaba let out a low whistle, "That confident huh?" he said, "I don't blame you, I watched them train for this and they were absolute monsters, I'd be surprised if they didn't make it."

Grace cheered happily, "Yeah! Naruto-nii and Erza-nee are the best!" she exclaimed almost jumping up and down.

Mira listened into the conversation, a frown marring her features as she looked into the forest almost with an expression of worry, _'Naruto.'_

* * *

They ran for almost ten minutes straight before deciding to slow down. The forest was thick on both sides making it clear that this was the only way to go. No turning back now.

Naruto turned to his red headed team mate, "So what do you think these challenges that the Master mentioned are?" he asked her.

Erza hummed in thought, "I'm not too sure but it's probably just the monsters that live here in the forest." As if on cue the ground beneath them started to emit creaking noises and then suddenly gave way.

Erza let out a shriek of fear and Naruto yelled as they both fell to the ground with a loud thump.

The blonde rubbed his now throbbing head, "Oww, so much for the monsters in the forest, I think I cracked my head on a rock." Naruto looked around at Erza who was clutching her ankle in pain, "You okay?" he made his way over to his team mate looking at her with concern.

Erza put on a brave face and stood up but it was clear she was leaning more on her left foot, "It's nothing, I'll be fine." She said, "How we get out of this hole should be out main concern" the teen looked up; the walls of the pit were steep and tall, getting out was definitely going to be a tricky but nothing they couldn't handle.

"Well, it won't be too hard." Naruto said as he looked up towards the opening, "You could use your _Heaven's Wheel Armour_ and I could blast myself out using _Nejibana_." He suggested with a shrug.

Erza's brow creased slightly in thought, "Do you remember if there was a time limit, I'm pretty sure there isn't but I want to make sure." She said folding her arms across her chest.

Naruto shook his head, "There isn't, master said that there was no time limit but the fast we move the better." He pulled _Nejibana_ off of his back and dug the spear end into the ground, "You ready?" the blonde asked.

Erza re-quipped her _Heaven's Wheel Armour_, still leaning on her left foot a little more, "Of course, we have an S-ranked trial to pass." She grinned at Naruto, who now had his two hands on his weapon gripping it tightly.

Naruto looked at her with a sit-eating grin, "See you at the top!" He exclaimed almost gleefully as a blue magic circle appeared below him spreading out from the spear tip and shot out of the pit fall in a massive, high pressure torrent of water. Leaving Erza soaking wet.

Erza's eye twitched violently and the water works died down, "I am going to kill him for that." Sometime she wondered why she loved that idiot… the redhead quickly shook the thought from her head, _'That's something for later'_ she thought to herself.

"Yo! Erza-chan, you still alive down there?" Naruto called into the pit, _Nejibana _safely sheathed on his back, "What's taking you so long?"

A tick mark appeared on her fore head, "I'm coming you idiot!" she yelled back angrily. Using her armour's abilities she flew out of the trap with no problem at all. She landed beside the blond, lifting her sword she hit him upside the head with the flat of her blade.

"Ouch!" Naruto yelped, rubbing the back of his head furiously, "What was… that… oh." He flushed bright red seeing Erza in her not so modest armour, soaking wet. Her skin gleamed from the sun's rays shining on the droplets of water running down her breasts and stomach. He failed to notice the expression on Erza's face, who looked torn between angered and satisfied.

"That was for drenching in water without warning." Erza said, changing back into her normal armour, snapping Naruto out of his daze, "Come on, we're wasting time, Gildarts is waiting." She continued walking down the path towards their destination.

Naruto shook his head clear and started after Erza, she was his best friend, one of the first he's ever had, when being raised by a dragon one tended to not have many friends. He was surprised that he wasn't socially reclusive like Mystogan, though what happened last Christmas was hilarious, but still recently Naruto had been feeling different around Erza recently, his heart rate would pick up and his throat dry slightly, which was weird because of his water and Dragon Slayer magic made it much tougher for him to become dehydrated in any way. He liked Erza, he really did but this was new to him and left the blond feeling unsure.

Naruto caught up with his red headed team mate, he needed to focus on the task at hand, Gildarts wouldn't let them space out during their fight and best friend or not, he was pretty sure that Erza would kill him if he cost them the trial, or at least cause him massive amounts of pain. Either or, it was not something he wanted to experience at all.

* * *

After about ten minutes of walking the pair walked into a wide clearing, the trees were rustling in a non existing wind, it was almost like they shaking in anticipation. Naruto and Erza could feel the tension in the air, it was thick and heavy. They looked wearily around the clearing; something was off, but what...?

"You think that this is we have to fight Gildarts?" Naruto asked as he slowly moved to grab _Nejibana_ and Erza prepared to re-quip at a moment's notice.

"I'm not too sure, but I believe that it is." She replied, eyeing the surrounding trees.

A soft wind blew through the clearing and a low encompassing rumble started to emanate from the trees. The air seemed to grow heavier and a bead of sweat rolled down Naruto's cheek; the anticipation was killing him and he was sure that Erza wasn't much better.

A tree branch cracked behind them, both mages twisted round to see a massive green ape like beast leap from the tree tops followed by about five others. They landed in the clearing, grinning maliciously at them.

Erza smiled slightly, "Oh, it's just some Vulcans, and here I thought it might be a threat." She turned to her partner only to find him glaring at the beasts with frustration.

"Goddamn it!" he exclaimed, drawing _Nejibana_, "I was really hoping for Gildarts but instead I get a group of perverted monkeys!" his scowl deepen as he watched them eye Erza lecherously, oh he was going to enjoy kicking these monkey's asses.

Erza looked disgusted at the Vulcans, "Let's get this over with quickly, we need to conserve as much magic as possible for or fight with Gildarts." She re-quipped into her _Heaven's Wheel Armour_, which in Naruto's opinion did not help the damn monkey's perversion.

Naruto swung his halberd trident in a large arc releasing a wave of water at the Vulcans. When the wave hit, he expected to see the monkeys knocked over and then Erza charge them with her swords flying but that never happened, the wave he sent at them dispersed without doing anything. Both Naruto and Erza were greatly confused by this, while it was not the strongest or best that Naruto could have done but it should have been more than enough to knock over a group of six Vulcans.

Erza's eyes widened when she realised what the Vulcans were now holding. Magic weapons. An axe, a spear, a claymore, a hatchet, a scythe and a lance. All glowing and giving off a slight aura of magic. The monkey like beast laughed mockingly at the two mages before charging at them, weapons flying.

"How the hell did they get their hands on weapons like those?" Naruto yelled as he rolled away from the Vulcan with the spear. When the spear stabbed the ground, the area around it froze solid.

"Shit!" Naruto swung _Nejibana_ and struck the Vulcan in the head knocking it back into a nearby tree. Erza was floating above using her _Telekinesis_ to send swords at the giant green monkeys. Her swords kept hitting their mark but they just wouldn't stay down, how were they this strong?

The Vulcan holding a claymore jumped into the air and swung at Erza, who easily dodged the long blade and responded by swinging her own sword and slicing the monster's wrist making it yell and drop with weapon. Erza quickly capitalised on this and grabbed the magic weapon and storing it into her re-quip space then quickly spinning to land a heavy round house kick to the beast's head knocking it out and sending it clear into the forest.

"I've never heard of Vulcans using weapons before." Erza muttered to herself as she blocked an attempted stab from a flaming lance and sent the monkey flying, "Someone must have given them these weapons somehow."

Naruto ducked under the whistling scythe blade as its holder attempted to decapitate him, he stabbed the spear end of his weapon into the ground of the clearing releasing a large wave of water from all around him catching two of the five Vulcans still fighting off guard and knocking them to the ground causing them to let go of their magic weapons.

"Naruto!" Erza called to the blonde, "f you can, get them away from their weapons and pass them up to me!"

Naruto replied with a quick 'okay' and gathered water from his last attack around his wrist and extending it out like a long tentacle,

"_Suiryu no muchi!_ (Water Dragon's whip)" he whipped his arm around striking the two downed monster sending them further away from their hatchet and lance. The blonde Dragon Slayer rolled to the side away from a reaping strike from the scythe. _'Wind magic. I had better not get cut by that thing or I might lose an arm, or worse.'_ He sent a _Mizu no Atsuryoku-kyu shoto_ (Water Pressure Sphere shot) at the ape. The pressurised ball of water exploded in its face rendering it blind for a few moments. With a _Mizu no Suteppu_ (Water step) Naruto appeared behind the Vulcan, landing a solid punch into its lower back knocking it to the ground and with one swift motion he removed the scythe from the monkey's grasp.

"Erza-chan!" he yelled to his red headed teammate, who was dodging and parrying spear stabs and axe swipes "Catch!" he throwing the magic scythe up to her.

Erza looked to see the weapon flying towards her; she ducked under another attempted axe blow and caught it then quickly stored it in her re-quip space. She turned around to see the spear wielding Vulcan launch itself at her, the armoured mage dodged to the side and cut across the beast's stomach, sending it crashing to the ground.

Meanwhile, Naruto had managed to get hold of the hatchet and lance from the two other Vulcan's but that did not stop them from attacking him with their fists. He jumped into the air both of his arms coating themselves in water,

"_Suiryu no Yokugeki!_ (Water Dragon's wing attack)_"_

The two 'wings' of water slammed into both Vulcans and sent them flying deep into the forest. Erza landed beside him in the middle of the drenched clearing

Only one left.

The last of the Vulcans stood holding its axe with a wide, stupid grin, "You won't beat me." it grunted confidently, "I'm the strongest, especially with this." it swung the magic axe a few times to prove its point but Naruto and Erza weren't impressed, if anything, they were rather annoyed, while the other ones had been a pain to fight that was only because both of them were holding back a lot for their fight with Gildarts not to mention that this was definitely not part of the Trial, there was no way that anyone in Fairy Tail could convince a single Vulcan, let alone six, to help them or do anything! And even if anyone could, they wouldn't, it would just pointlessly get them to waste their magic and distract them for the fight against Trial.

"Look, just to save you the pain and us the bother," Naruto said trying not to show his irritation, "Why don't you just hand over the axe before we beat the ever loving shit out of you."

The Vulcan reacted much quicker than expected; it charged them both, much faster than it had before! Naruto brought _Nejibana_ up in front of himself to block the oncoming attack, but as soon as the axe blade touched the tridents handle Naruto was shot backwards _through_ the tree behind him at the edge of the clearing. Blast Magic.

"NARUTO!" Erza yelled after the blonde in complete shock and horror. She only snapped out of her trance just in time dodge the large tree that was about to fall on top of her. The tree landed in the middle of the clearing with a defining crash. Shock and horror gave way to and anger and fury. The beast had quite possibly severely injured her Naruto and she wouldn't stand for it. Just as she was about to re-quip in to a stronger suit of armour when she heard a low guttural growl sound from the forest right where Naruto was sent.

Naruto emerged from the trees, his clothes ripped from where bits of wood had caught. His naturally spiky blonde hair now looked more wild and untamed than anything, the whisker marks on his cheeks were much thicker and darker than ever before but the biggest change for Erza was his eyes; from the beautiful ocean blue they were before were now a deep angry red. In all honesty, it scared her a little.

"Alright you piss ape, now you've really ticked me off." he growled, his fists clenching tightly in his anger. The axe wielding Vulcan took a step back in fear of the blonde.

Naruto disappeared in a _Mizu no Suteppu_ and reappeared in front of the large ape, his fist planting firmly into the Vulcan's face and sending it flying into a nearby tree. Naruto quickly charged after it, landing another solid punch onto the monkey. He kept it this for several minutes, he didn't really know why he was doing this, all he did know was that he was angry and this piss ape was a perfect outlet.

"_**Hahaha."**_

The dark laughter echoed through his mind making him freeze in place... no, it couldn't have been... Kyuubi?!

Naruto dropped to his knees, the beaten and bloody Vulcan slumped over, dead.

Erza rushed to her companion's side, tears forming in her eyes, it was horrible for her to watch Naruto like that, and she had never seen him act so brutal before in all the time she had known him. It almost looked like he was in pain. She changed back into her normal clothing; not caring if she got them wet or muddy and she held him tightly telling him that it was over. He leaned into her holding her back shaking slightly from shock.

* * *

A shadowed figure had watched the entire fight from the trees with great interest, after all it was because of him that those Vulcans got the magical weapons in the first place.

He mulled over the closing scene of the fight, watching Naruto pummel the Vulcan to death with his own bare hands. The red eyes stood out especially.

'_So he can summon it after all.'_ The figure thought to himself feeling rather pleased with what he had discovered, _'Good, then it won't be long now'_ and with that final thought he vanished like he was never there.

* * *

After about five minutes of just sitting in the one spot holding each other, Naruto had finally calmed down enough to become coherent and he smiled sheepishly at Erza,

"Sorry." he muttered.

Erza looked at him questioningly, "Sorry for what?" she asked.

Naruto shifted his gaze back to the muddy ground, "For making you watch that, I don't know what happened Erza-chan, I - I just-" but Erza cut him off,

"It's alright, Naruto, we'll talk about it later, for now we gotta find Gildarts and have our Trial."

"That you do." An all too familiar voice broke through to them, "And I must say that was a rather impressive fight there, even though it was painfully obvious how much both of you were holding back." The pain turned to see Gildarts standing at the edge of the clearing looking on at them with a kind smile.

"How long have you been there?" Naruto questioned, sound none too happy with the man standing not too far away, "Why didn't you help?"

The older man shrugged, "Well, magic weapons or not, I thought two would handle them easily, which you did."

Erza stood up and helped Naruto, who despite being blasted through a tree was feeling absolutely fine, "Then shall we begin?" Erza asked, re-quipping into her _Lightning Empress Armour_. Naruto quickly got into his battle stance, ready to go full out from the start.

Gildarts' face broke out into a large grin, "Yes, we shall."

* * *

**And scene**

**I am sorry for the forever and two year wait for this chapter but not long after I started it, I kinda lost momentum and drive to finish it and by the time I got it back I was spending all my free time revising for my Mock GCSE's and when they were done, I had lost it again, it was only recently, during an ICT class that I got my will to write back again! So thank you all for being patient and I gotta say, every time this happens, I find it amusing when I check my inbox and find a PM asking me if I'm well and when I will update, to which I think means two things; my readers care for me and are getting impatient and I need to get my ass in gear.**

**Anyways, as I promised the result from my poll (which most of you most likely have forgotten about because of how long it has been)**

**Naruto/Mirajane - 132 votes **

**Naruto/Cana - 91 votes**

**Naruto/Levi - 73 votes**

**Naruto/Lisanna - 73 votes**

**Naruto/Evergreen - 27 votes**

**Naruto/Bisca - 14 votes.**

**It's safe to say that Mira won that one ^^ still, I planned this and I have a few chapters for this story planned out and it should be out soon so keep an eye out. After this, I'll be updating New Spirit, which quite a few of you seem to like, so I'm happy. I have a week off to work on this so it should be up soon, scouts honour (I'm not a scout _). Sorry for the long A/N but I felt it necessary. Don't forget to review.**

**Anyways, until next time,**

**Ja Ne**


	10. Chapter 10

**Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto**

**Fairy Tail © Hiro Mashima**

* * *

**Chapter Ten**

Nothing moved, not even the leaves on the tree in the forest, everything was silent in anticipation for the inevitable fight between mages. The tension in the air was slowly building to the point of near combustion. The whole forest stood still to watch.

Gildarts Clive smiled down at the two teens almost like he was completely oblivious to the rising tensions in the air. In all honesty, he was looking forward to this fight; Naruto and Erza had proven themselves to be very capable mages and had the potential to become some of the strongest ever seen. He was going to enjoy this very much.

Naruto and Erza stood facing the ace of Fairy Tail both ready to leap into action at any second. They both knew that this was a fight that they would not win; Gildarts was far too strong. While neither of them had seen the man fight at full power, they knew that his power and skill was topped only by the Master and sure they were strong, they were nowhere that level... yet. Their best hope was to try and hit him as much as possible.

Gildarts decided to speak to break through the tension, "Before we begin," he said, "I want you to know that I'm proud of you both, I'm sure that once this Trial is over, both of you will be S-class mages and you never know, Mira and the others may just be joining you soon." the blonde and redheaded pair smiled at his praise but did not leave their positions.

**(Play; Ocean Princess by Tomas Bergersen)**

"Now, come at me with all you got." Gildarts held his hands up directly in front of him, getting ready to fire off his Disassembly magic at a moment's notice.

Naruto grinned, without a second of hesitation he channelled his magical energy into _Nejibana_ and slammed it into the ground. At first nothing happened, confusing Gildarts but he knew something was going on as the blonde's grin only widened and Erza herself had broken out in a grin.

A low rumbling sound soon made itself known to the Ace and was becoming steadily louder. Soon the low rumble had become a defining roar. The source; a gigantic wave that had risen up behind the S-ranked hopefuls. It sat in place, water rising up to the top of the massive wave giving off the impression that it was getting taller. Gildarts' eyes widened slightly at the sight, this was impressive, but just because it was big didn't mean it was powerful. Time to test his magic.

Naruto grabbed hold of Erza, uttering a single word before he disappeared with the redhead in a splash of water, "_Tsunami."_

At the Dragon Slayer's word, the massive wave started to move forwards at a surprising velocity. Gildarts held up hand ready to break apart the body of water with his Disassembly but at the last second, it did something that would make stopping it quite a bit tougher.

It began to break.

Several tons of water began to crash down on the orange haired mage ready to crush, suffocate and wash him away like a piece of sea drift but despite the seeming difficulty of the situation the man grinned. This was going to be a good match; they might even get him to start using his Crash magic. Raising both his arms above himself, Gildarts released a pulse of Disassembly magic. A net pattern appeared all over the falling mass of water, seemingly stopping it in place. After a single moment of hanging in place the wave broke apart into hundreds of little cube and started to rain down onto the already drenched clearing. Naruto and Erza were nowhere to be seen

The older mage gave out a cheerful laugh, "Come on you two, you'll need to do better than that to even lay a hand on me."

His statement was met with silence making him frown slightly; neither Naruto nor Erza were ones to try and hide or even try to fight indirectly, it just wasn't their style. Apparently, when they disappeared to avoid getting hit with Naruto's _Tsunami_ spell, it wasn't just to get out of the way.

A rustle of leaves behind the man alerted him to movement. Gildarts spun round to see the blonde sixteen year old standing on a thick tree branch, _Nejibana_ still in hand, his grin still in place but there was something missing and he couldn't figure out what,

"Whoever said that we were trying to hit you?" Naruto said cockily.

Then it hit him; Erza. Where was she?

"Finally realised have you?" Naruto asked knowingly, "By the way, I got two facts for you, you probably already know them, but I'll tell you anyway."

"One; you're all wet and two; water conducts electricity better than wood." to Gildarts, the first 'fact' was true but he failed to see the importance and the second 'fact' seemed even less important than the first.

He heard a light sizzle and not even a second later he felt it. Thousands of volts of electricity were now running through his system, it was painful, and he did his best not to let his body collapse under the force of his contracting muscles. Gildarts let out a grunt as he activated his Crash magic. A thick white aura formed around the large man and the muddy ground beneath him began to ripple and distort under the force of the destructive magic.

Erza stood in her _Lightning Empress Armour_ behind him, her lance stabbed into a puddle and sending as much Lightning magic at the man as possible. A simple plan; make Gildarts wet, distract him for as long as possible then hit him with a few thousand volts of electric charge and see what damage it did. Where they expecting it to beat him? Hell no; the nothing short of the world's end would stop that man, and even then that was only a small possibility. But hopefully it would help to slow him down for a few moments. Erza saw Naruto give her a brief nod, she pulled her lance out of the puddle and re-quipped into her _Flight Armour_. She leaped into the forest when Gildarts' magic aura started to disappear signalling the end of his usage of Crash Magic.

The large mage took a deep breath, he had definitely felt that one, Fairy Tail's Ace or not, that hurt. He was really impressed; few people had ever done anything like that to him and walk away without many broken bones. Gildarts quickly and subtly ran through a check of his movements, an attack like that more often than not left some kind of mess up in a person's nervous system... at least, that's what he had heard. All seemed fine when he realised that he was leaning heavily on his right leg. He almost laughed; those two had made his left leg numb and possibly unusable for the next little while.

Naruto stood up in his tree watching Gildarts shake off the lightning and water shock with relative ease. It wasn't that surprising; after all the man was a walking mountain. When Erza made herself scarce into the foliage, he took a deep breath, sucking up all the water from the ground around him and preparing to use his dragon's roar. When the white aura vanished Gildarts took a deep sigh of relief,

"Nice one, I was not expecting that but you'll have to be better than that to beat Me." he said loudly, making sure that Erza had heard him. He adjusted himself lightly, trying not to make it obvious that he was favouring his right side.

The only response he received was a yell of, _"Suiryu no Hoko!"_ a large, high pressure jet of water was sent his way. The orange haired man smiled, he lifted his hand and 'caught' the spell. Like with the _Tsunami_ spell, a net like pattern spread over the spell and broke it apart.

Erza, still in her _Flight Armour_, took her chance and leapt at the orange haired man, her sword poised, ready to strike. Gildarts seemed not to have noticed her as his hand was still raised up from blocking Naruto's last spell. She swung her sword forwards intent on cutting through the man's flesh. Time slowed for a second as Gildarts turned his head around to face her with an almost bright smile,

"Close, but no cigar." he said.

The man's large hand moved at seemingly impossible speeds as it grabbed Erza's blade from mid flight. Her eyes widened; how? She was sure that he would have at least been distracted enough for her to land a hit on him or get close enough so that he wouldn't be able to stop her not to mention he had just caught her razor sharp sword with his bare hands! There was no way that he could have been able to do that; it didn't matter how strong you are, unless you have something to protect you, skin was skin and swords would always cut through it! Plus she sharpened all of her blades the previous night so the blade wasn't dull in any meaning of the word.

Taking advantage of Erza's momentary surprise he clutched the sword tighter and gave a quick twist flipping the girl over his shoulder and slamming her onto the soggy ground. Channelling _Disassembly Magic_ into his other fist he landed a blow onto the sword and shattered it like glass.

"_Suiryu no_ _Yari Gou!_ (Water Dragon's Torrential Spear)" Naruto landed in front of him holding a large spear made purely of water and it looked rather sharp too. No sooner had the blonde landed and Gildarts looked up, the spear was heading in the larger man's direction at high speed.

The orange haired man wasted no time at all in neutralising the spell. Erza saw her chance and kicked Gildarts in the leg as hard as she physically could from her position on the ground and to her delightful surprise the leg was knocked out from under him sending the man off balance.

Gildarts cursed mentally; she just kicked his left leg and caught him off guard... again! But part of him was happy that they were doing so well at the same time. As much as he would have loved to continue that train of thought, it seemed that Naruto had realised his chance and was already preparing another spell. This was definitely a good fight; he couldn't wait to fight back.

"_Suiryu no Senkai Shio!_ (Water Dragon's Whirling Tide)" A massive, violently swirling body of water gathered above the blonde's head as Gildarts' fought to steady himself. Erza used the speed boost given to her by her _Flight Armour_, jumping out of range of the attack she Re-quipped into her _Heaven's Wheel Armour_ and summoning some of her many swords around herself preparing an attack of her own.

Gildarts quickly realised that he now had two attacks to avoid and he still hadn't fully recovered feeling in his left leg yet. It was a tricky situation but not an impossible one to get out of, at least for him anyway.

With a slightly strained yell Naruto let loose the large spell down upon the guild Ace. Erza's swords, which had been floating around her, started to spin faster,

"_Tenrin: Sākuru Sōdo_! (Heavens Wheel: Circle Sword" Erza yelled and as commanded, all of the floating blades spiralled their way towards Gildarts at an extremely high speed completely intent on causing major injury to their target.

Gildarts smirked as he saw the attacks heading towards him. For the second time in a day he activated his _Crash Magic_, making the ground underneath him distort and deform even more, his cloak billowed into the air from the pure force of the magic. Both Naruto and Erza's attacks collided with the heavy white magic aura they simply against it leaving not a mark on the man.

"It seems you both took my advice from all that time ago to heart, didn't you?" Gildarts said looking at the pair who were standing directly in front of him. They were both breathing rather heavily, Naruto more so than Erza.

The blonde grinned with a nod, "Yup, once you get the advantage, don't let up."

"We thought that against you, that was the best option to go with as well as keeping you focused on one while the other attacked from behind." Erza explained, "That way you wouldn't be able to get enough time to use your magic properly."

"That is certainly a good strategy and the trick with the _Lightning Magic_ was impressive." The mage nodded his approval, "But like I said; if you want to beat me, you'll need to do a lot better than that" his eyes sharpened, having gotten enough feeling back in his leg, he launched himself at Naruto seeing as he was currently the more tired of the two.

Naruto's eyes widened as he realised what was happening. He quickly rotated in place, water picking up of off the ground and rotating with him creating a strong shield,

"_Umi no Jiten!_ (Ocean's Rotation)"

Erza could only watched in shock and slight fascination as Gildarts charged at her teammate with his fist cocked back and the sphere of water that surrounded the blonde. The older mage was undeterred as he slammed his fist into the shield and _cracks_ spread all over the watery dome.

For a second time seemed to stop as the protective spell slowed and shattered under the immense force of the punch. Naruto himself was blown away by the pure force and send sailing into the tree behind him.

Erza Re-quipped into her _Black Wing Armour_ and charged at the S-ranked mage, sure, it may have been a fairly stupid move but he was distracted this may be her only chance to get another good hit on him. Poising her sword, she prepared her attack,

"_Kureha Gesshen! _(Black Wing: Moon Flash)"

The red headed mage sent the attack flying at Gildarts but just as she was about to land and move to check on Naruto she was suddenly stopped in place. An immense pain surged its way throughout her abdomen, it felt like she had just flown into a concrete wall at high speed. She coughed and spat up a bit of blood. Erza's vision swam and the next thing she knew, she was on her knees holding her stomach.

Gildarts' looked down at Erza as she continued coughing up small wads of blood and spit... he may have underestimated the speed that younger mage was travelling at. He let out a deep sigh and looked over to where he had punched Naruto, that shield of his was tough, had it not been for his _Crash Magic_ Gildarts might have broken his hand for on it. He expected to see the blonde lying on the ground unconscious from both lack of magic and quite possibly concussion but no, he was not there, and there was no sign of him.

Sensing a magical presence behind him, Gildarts looked around to seem a grinning Naruto holding a slightly wobbly but smirking Erza.

"We're not done yet old man." He said getting a small twitch from the orange haired mage, "We still got one more trick up our sleeve."

Gildarts raised an eyebrow, "Oh? And what might this trick be?" he asked inquisitively, "You know, this fight is done; you're exhausted and Erza is hurt, there is no need to go on."

By the time Gildarts' sentence was said, Erza was in her _Lightning Empress Armour_ and Naruto had stabbed _Nejibana_ deep into the earth.

"_Metsuryu ogi: Daiumi: Sugureta Kanketsusen! _(Dragon Slayer's Secret Art: Great Sea: Superior Geyser)" Naruto yelled.

The earth started to shake like some kind of earthquake was beginning to hit the forest. The ground around Gildarts began to split open. The man looked down to see hundreds of gallons of water rushing up to the surface at an insane speed. Before he was able to do anything about the oncoming rush on water he heard another spell being chanted,

"_Raitei: Raitoningu Bīmu! _(Lightning Empress: Lightning Beam)"

Not even having a split second to make a decision the older mage used his _Disassembly Magic_ on the beam of high voltage electricity and breaking it apart before it hit him. Barely a moment later he was launched up into the sky by the powerful jet of water and it boiling hot too!

Gildarts righted himself in the air, the cold air stung painfully against the fresh burns from the boiling geyser, and as his decent began he readied to land a punch that those two would never forget.

Naruto watched as Gildarts started to fall but there was something off; both he and Erza had seen that he had easily stopped Erza's spell only to be hit by his and now it looked like the man was aiming towards them and not falling... oh.

"Shit!" Naruto exclaimed as it struck him; Gildarts really was aiming at them and at the speed he was falling at, it would hurt and hurt a lot. The blonde picked up his teammate bridal style and started running into the forest but he couldn't move that fast between exhaustion from all the spells he'd used in one go and the extra weight of carrying Erza, not that she weighs that much or anything.

"Naruto!" Erza exclaimed, "What the hell!"

"He's aiming for us Erza!" Naruto replied jumping over a shrub, "Need to move as far away as possible or it will hurt."

**BOOM!**

An unearthly blast echoed throughout the entire forest, the shockwave shaking everything from the smallest of leaves to the very ground itself! To both Naruto and Erza it felt like getting run over by some kind of monster. Naruto was knocked straight off of his feet and both of them flew twenty feet into the forest were they landed, barely conscious.

Five minutes later Gildarts was walking through the forest calling out their names to try and find them, it seemed that this time he underestimated how powerful the landing would be, a bit too much _Crash Magic_ it seems and that clearing was now a whole lot more clear that's for sure.

He finally located Naruto and Erza, who was back in her standard armour, lying on their backs staring blankly up at that sky. The older mage leaned over them with a grin,

"Up you get you two," he said grabbing their hands and pulling them to their feet, "You both did very well, I'm proud of you both."

Naruto rubbed his head and winced in pain, "Ouch, damn old man you punch too hard."

"Well then you shouldn't have sent me flying into the air like that." Gildarts retorted.

Erza just rolled her eyes at them, "Anyway, did we pass?" she asked, a strong looked of trepidation in her eyes. Naruto froze as he remembered about the S-ranked Trial.

Gildarts smiled happily down at the pair, "You both pass with flying colours and I must say that that was one of the best fights I've had in a long time." he turned around and started walking back towards the guild, "Now come on, let's go tell everyone the good news!"

Naruto and Erza stared at the man's slowly receding back wide eyes and gaping mouths, both still processing what they had just been told. When it finally sank in they closed their mouth and turned to each other, still not knowing what to do. They did the first logical thing that their brains told them to do;

They kissed.

* * *

~_Kami's realm~_

Kami and her sister, Yami watched the whole scene of events unfold with contrasting reactions; Kami smiled happily at the pair, they were both strong and thing could finally get under way. Yami looked on with complete and utter boredom, she had no idea why her sister kept insisting that they watch that boy so much, sure, he was important in her little scheme but come on he wasn't that interesting.

"Are you sure that this is a good idea?" Yami asked for the millionth time as she filed her nails with no real interest.

"I told you before and I'll tell you again, yes." Kami replied, "Though I'm starting to think that taking his memories was not the brightest thing to do, but I digress."

"Whatever you say," Yami sighed and set down her nail file, "I still don't see why you can't just send one of your Angels after him or even go after him yourself, it would be much easier that way, wouldn't it?"

Kami just shook her head, "No, Lucian is the strongest I have bar none, he'd just kill whoever I send after him and it will only serve to make him angrier especially if I went and even if I wanted to I wouldn't be able to; laws set long before you or I forbid us from taking the lives of our servants, rogue or not. That and I won't sacrifice any of my people so needlessly."

Yami scoffed, "Yet you'll sacrifice that human, to use the mortal term, like a lamb to the slaughter?"

The blonde deity just smiled knowingly, "No, dear Naruto has the potential to defeat Lucian, he just needs the Kyuubi and that thing that people like him have... what was it? Oh, right, _Dragon Force_."

Yami gave a mirthless laugh, "It will still be a stretch but honestly, I don't care, if things get too out of hand I'll step in myself." she pulled out some silver nail polish and began to apply it, "Still, this little scheme of yours is quite amusing though, Shini isn't too happy that you're letting that bastard use that seal of his like that but even he admits that it is an original plan, even for you."

"I'm glad it amused you." Kami's light tone suddenly became serious, "He has it you know, the only thing that could possibly beat us and if Naruto fails he will have the Kyuubi's power plus Nirvana and there will be no stopping him, not you, me, Shini or even all of us working together. All creation will be his to command."

Yami froze, her pale complexion turned a sickly grey, "This is an awfully big gamble you know." she said slowly, her voice suddenly sounding extremely dry, "Especially if you let her go, it will be even easier for Lucian to control the Kyuubi if he gets his hands on her."

Kami sighed, "I know, but Kushina will be the catalyst that will lead to the salvation or destruction of creation.

**And Scene**

**There, done at last, sorry it took a while; I had a friend stay over** **during the last few days of my week off and all we did was play Minecraft and watch anime. At least it is done. I'm not the best at writing fight scenes and this chapter is just one big one, so it probably sucks. Too bad. I did say that Kami and Yami would be back and if I didn't, well I'm saying it** **now, live with it. Just one or two more chapters till my own little story arc that I've been working on, what you read at the end was a little build up to it. I'd like to ask some of my regular readers, if you don't mind spoilers, for some help and to see what you think about what I have planned. Any help would be much appreciated.**

**I might not be updating in a while, I'm in my final four weeks before my final GCSE exams and things will be hectic to say the least but I swear I'll do my best. Give me about two weeks at most. I'm glad to say that Demon's Fox was a success (If you haven't read it go read it now!) so I'll be keeping with that for a while.**

**I'll be updating New Spirit next and as I said, give me 2 weeks max to get the chapter, it will definitely be fun to write.**

**Next time: The Cursed Mission and It begins! Don't forget to Review!**

**Anyways, until next time,**

**Ja Ne**


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